To promote green agricultural development, local governments have introduced various ecological compensation policies to actively facilitate the recycling of livestock and poultry waste. Pig farmers, as the key agents responsible for the recycling of pig manure, exhibit subjective initiative in their value perception and willingness to participate. Based on 151 survey questionnaires from pig farmers in Laiyang City, Shandong Province, this study employs a binary Logit model and a mediation effect model to investigate the impact and interrelationship of ecological compensation and value perception on the farmers' engagement in pig manure recycling. The findings indicate that individual characteristics such as age, education level, technical proficiency, value perception, and ecological compensation significantly influence the farmers' willingness to participate. Value perception has a masking effect in regulatory compensation, a partial mediating effect in subsidy-based compensation, and a full mediating effect in promotional compensation regarding the farmers' willingness to recycle pig manure. Based on these results, rational suggestions are proposed for county-level governments to implement circular utilization of livestock and poultry waste.