An important component for ensuring the efficient use and improving the reliability of agricultural machinery is the availability of appropriate regulatory and technical documentation governing the requirements for its technical condition and operation. Serviceability of equipment can be restored during repair, and operability - is maintained during maintenance and in the course of operation on the basis of recommendations provided by the instructions and guiding materials on the use of machines. For timely and effective maintenance and repair of means for preparation and distribution of fodder (MPDF) it is necessary to know: criteria of operability loss; limit and admissible values of parameters of the technical state; process indicators of transition of machinery from operable to non-operable state; regularities of changes in the main properties. The article presents the monitoring of instructions for maintenance and operation of machinery, guiding materials for use from the position of their informativeness on the implementation of reliability requirements. The monitoring was conducted for the analysis of foreign samples of MPDF. Within the framework of the monitoring, grinding-mixing mechanisms (GMM) were analyzed from the position of availability of information about design features, possible failures and malfunctions, main ways of restoration of serviceability. The main provisions, which are determinative for estimation of technical condition of separate parts and working bodies, for improvement of GMM and MPDF reliability as a whole when using guiding materials, have been established. The provisions include: information about indicators of machine reliability; frequency of maintenance and repair of machines, restoration of working parts; information about the labor intensity of maintenance and repair of machines, restoration of working parts; diagrams of assembly-disassembly of mechanisms, restoration of working parts; typical failures and sequence of their elimination; criteria of limiting condition; technologies of restoration of working parts; information on storage requirements