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Animal manure is an under utilized biomass resource that potentially can be used for producing biochemicals and biofuel. The duel purpose of this project was to characterize dairy manure as a sugar platform feedstock for biochemical and biofuel production and to describe the efficiency of acid hydrolysis processes for producing sugars from manure fiber. First, dairy manure was analyzed for dry matter distribution in different sized particles and chemical composition. Second, dilute acid hydrolysis was tested for converting manure fibers to sugars. The results indicated that (1) more than 75% of the dry matter in dairy manure consisted of particles greater than 0.125 mm, (2) protein content is significant in the dairy manure, 3) a little over 50% of the dry matter in the dairy manure was fiber, 4) the hemicellulose component in the fiber was readily converted to sugar through acid hydrolysis, and 5) the yield of glucose from cellulose in the hydrolysis process was low.