Cover Story: Courtland Waste Handling - Your Customized Manure Handling Specialists
Courtland Waste Handling is your full service liquid manure handling sales and service center. Our sales staff offers a full line of new and used liquid manure handling equipment, from Houle – GEA Farm Technologies, Calumet, and Bazooka Farmstar, to meet all your needs from the barn to the field. The service center has the knowledge, equipment, and an extensive inventory of parts to get your items ready or repaired for the season.
If you currently use liquid manure or have an interest in incorporating it into your fields and pastures in the future give Courtland Waste Handling a call and let us show you how we can make your current or future operation more efficient.
Owners, Courtland Waste Handling
Who Is Courtland Waste Handling
Courtland Waste Handling, Inc. (Courtland) was started in 1995 in the small town of Courtland, Minnesota. Originally owned by Mike Dauer, Courtland’s primary business was the sales and service of liquid manure handling equipment that is used in farm and livestock operations.
In July of 2006 Mike’s son Chris Dauer and business partner Mark Guggisberg purchased Courtland. Chris grew up working side-by-side with his father, gaining invaluable experience, in the family business since he was 13-years-old. Mark grew up on a dairy farm, and once returning from his service in the U.S. Air Force, ran his own dairy farm for four years. Mark sold the dairy cattle when he started a metal fabrication business. His 13 years with the fabrication venture has given him extensive background that aids in the design and installation of the off-loader systems that Courtland sells for semi-tanker trailers.
Courtland is and always has been an authorized Houle – GEA Farms Technologies, Calumet, and Bazooka Farmstar equipment dealer and service center. Through these manufacturers, Courtland is able to provide the end users the means to properly collect, separate, pump, transport, and incorporate liquid manure onto their fields and pastures.
What Courtland Does Best
Sales
Long ago farmers realized that liquid manure was a useful bi-product produced by livestock. In the past, the manure was collected and applied to the fields without regard to its supplemental value to the crop. Today, farm and livestock operations are required to have a Manure Management Plan (MMP) filed within their state. An MMP helps farmers and operators allocate manure (where, when, and how much) on an annual basis. Now manure is sampled and tested to determine its fertilizer potency levels. Once analyzed, operators can decide what quantity of manure can be applied to sustain adequate nutrient levels for crop production.
The collection process has also changed over the years; many of today’s farms have a collection system in place. Some operations separate their manure removing the solids, while others collect everything and hold in a pit under the barn and then move it to a tank or lagoon. Most manure is stored for a year and then applied to farm fields in the fall upon removal of that year’s crops.
The application process, including transport and the actual application, is where Courtland comes into the picture. Manure is applied by a liquid manure spreader that often uses a flow metering system. The metering system allows the operator to establish an application rate of liquid manure to best meets their fertilizer levels for the next year’s crop. By using liquid fertilizer a farmer can save a significant amount on the purchase of commercial fertilizer and also make strides to becoming and having a sustainable operation.
Courtland recognized that several local farms were beginning to transport liquid manure to fields further away from their operation. Tractors and liquid spreaders are built to work in the field, but are not very efficient when it comes to transporting the manure long distances.
In the fall of 2006, Courtland began to modify existing semi-tanker trailers to allow farmers or custom haulers to transport the liquid manure longer distances. Then in 2007 the Courtland mechanics began experimenting with installing hydraulic driven pumps to operate a manure pump on the trailers. They wanted to have a way to pump the manure through a pipe that was mounted to the trailer. This pipe, or boom, can be hydraulically controlled.
Now many of Courtland’s tanker trailers are custom fitted with their Off-Loader System. The standard 6” system can be equipped with either a 25’ or 30’ boom. New for 2014 is an 8” system that has an unload rate of approximately 3300 gallons per minute. Each system is powered by hydraulics that is supplied by a wet kit from the semi-tractor pulling the tanker. Does your semi-truck not have a wet kit? No worries the service staff at Courtland can install those too.
Do you have a special need or an “out of the box” problem? The sales department at Courtland has experience with custom projects and they have the capability of designing and fabricating custom pump systems for tanker trailers to meet almost any need. They can also perform a full frame rebuild on your existing trailer.
To complete Courtland’s already diverse line of equipment they began buying and selling used day cab trucks. Many farm operations use semi-trucks as their primary power units to pull their grain, fertilizer, water, and now their manure tanker trailers. In 2013 Courtland brought on a salesman to take care of their semi-truck sales. But not just any salesman, Chris and Mark wanted someone who truly understood the trucks. So they hired a truck mechanic that had over 30 years of experience working on and operating the type of trucks they sell.
Service
At Courtland they understand that the success of their business relies on the success of yours. It is with this understanding that they provide exceptional equipment servicing, because a piece of equipment is only as good as the support available for it. They are very proud to say that they service all equipment and brands that they sell. Their experienced service department is staffed by knowledgeable and trained personnel that are ready and willing to take care of your needs.
In the spring of 2013, Mark had a call from an egg grower in Texas who needed to empty a large 3-stage lagoon containing chicken manure. Typically they would have set the egg grower up with their standard off-loader trailers and have the trailers transfer manure into a liquid manure spreader being pulled by a tractor. The tractor and spreader would then surface apply the manure. However chicken manure contains a great deal of grit. The grower wanted to transport the manure up to 30-miles away to a pasture and over that distance the grit would settle in the tank. To solve the problem Courtland knew they needed to design a recirculation line to keep the manure agitated during transport. An additional obstacle was the grower was going to lease trucks to pull and run the trailers so they could not use any hydraulic power from the semi-truck.
The staff at Courtland designed a self contained diesel engine unit which powered a hydraulic pump system to operate the trailers and was mounted on the tanker trailers. In the cab of the semi-truck a console box was installed to allow the operator of the unit to control all the functions of the trailer without having to leave the cab. Courtland set-up a total of three tanker trailers for the Texas grower and he was able to empty the lagoon significantly faster than they expected to.
Why Choose Courtland Waste Handling
Traveling down the road longer distances is not very efficient when done with a tractor and manure tank because:
- Your travel time is slow.
- The tires on the tractor and spreader are prone to excessive wear.
- You are hauling many loads repetitively; the road safety can become an issue when meshing with regular traffic.
When you choose to use Courtland’s system benefits include:
- Compaction of field headlands is greatly reduced because the tanker trailers are nursing the spreader as they move along in the field.
- You save time and money by not using your tractor and spreader to transport the manure
- Your efficiency is increased with the use of multiple trucks and trailers delivering a steady flow of manure to the spreader. This means less down time.
- No direct contact with the manure. With Courtland’s off-loader system there are no hoses to hook up.
Business Name: Courtland Waste Handling, Inc.
Owners: Mark Guggisberg and Chris Dauer
Location: South Central Minnesota
Address: 316 4th Street Courtland, MN 56021
Website: www.courtlandwaste.com
Primary Business: Sales and service of semi-trucks, tank trailers, waste/sludge trailers, manure spreaders, and manure pumps. Specialize in custom set-up of semi-tanker trailers to transport liquid manure.
Authorized dealer and service center for Houle - GEA Farm Technologies, Calumet, and Bazooka Farmstar equipment
