Price of shavings anyone?

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Tabs

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Im bringing my new horse home this week and am looking in my area for shavings. So far i've been quoted £15-£20 for a 1/2 tonne bag of lose shavings or £5.50 + vat for blue frog compressed. I won a bag of blue frog but tbh i've heard mixed reviews about it.

I've looked about flax but it is £7.50 + vat and I think that's far to expensive ( I know flax makes for a good bed but have never used it).

Are the lose shavings a good enough deal?
 
I always used shavings until this winter but now the prices near me have rocketed. Last time I rang my supplier he quoted £8.50 collected or £10 delivered with a minimum of 30 bales. I 'm now using wood pellets which I'm finding just as workable and better value for money.
 
A King's ransom.

Bearing in mind that a bag of shavings is about 25kg, I think the half ton is an absolute steal. But do you have somewhere dry to store it? Half a ton will be a lot of shavings in a bag.
 
Yeah, I thought the lose shavings were the best and thankfully yes I have somewhere to keep them. I can't get pellets anywhere near me and so it would be too expensive I think to have them brought in as i only want them in small loads.
 
Th loose shavings sound really good price wise - but a couple of thoughts. How will you get the shavings from store to bed? A bale is easy and contained but loose you'll end up with it blowing all over the yard? Also - are they dust extracted? I got loose shavings once from a local supplier (one reason I know they are hard to move!) and they were absolutely full on inclusions and mess I would not want in animal bedding. You can chuck out the worst of it as you go - no different from mucking out, you just have to do it twice. But the lower 1/3 was nothing more than dust. But if they are dust extracted and clean I would absolutely put up with the inconvenience of moving them!
 
Shay said:
Th loose shavings sound really good price wise - but a couple of thoughts. How will you get the shavings from store to bed? A bale is easy and contained but loose you'll end up with it blowing all over the yard? Also - are they dust extracted? I got loose shavings once from a local supplier (one reason I know they are hard to move!) and they were absolutely full on inclusions and mess I would not want in animal bedding. You can chuck out the worst of it as you go - no different from mucking out, you just have to do it twice. But the lower 1/3 was nothing more than dust. But if they are dust extracted and clean I would absolutely put up with the inconvenience of moving them!
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Yes I was thinking about this because i doubt they are the best so i also looked into Blue Frog shavings. You bag them yourself so we get to put what we want in the bag and i have a small music/gig box trailer so they will be contained too.

TBH anything will be better than the crappy stable he is standing in. The stables are grand themselves but typical young guy doesn't clean out everyday and its basically a sty he's living in so anything will be a step up! Thanks Shay.
 
I am paying £6.50 a bale delivered for shavings i buy 40 at a time. I am in Lancashire, pretty reasonable now I have read what others are paying!
 
We buy off the yard at £7.50 but not sure what the mark up is. Given it's the same supplier as last yard and they charged £6.80 who knows! Been a long while since I bought them direct so I can't remember I'm afraid. Everything's getting rather expensive.
 
Do check the weight of that loose bag of shavings, is it a half tonne or is it a half tonne bag's worth?

As someone who spends my days looking at rows of tonne bags I can say that nearly everyone calls them 'tonne bags' but that most wont even take a tonne of gravel (ours do but we aren't the norm) so a whole 'tonne bag' of woodCHIP would probably weigh in at well under half a tonne and as low as 150kg and that's not even wood shavings which are considerably lighter and loose will be very bulky.

I'd be surprised if half a tonne bag of loose woodshavings is more than two or three bales worth and with loose stuff you have variable qualities too

If its an actual half tonne its not going to fit in to one bag but if its a genuine half tonne (say in several bags) then check the quality and if its good snap their hands off
 
That's what I was wondering, WelshD. A proper half ton in weight of shavings is going to take up a heck of a lot of room. You're looking at least 20 compact bales so it'll never fit in a builders bag.
 
WelshD said:
Do check the weight of that loose bag of shavings, is it a half tonne or is it a half tonne bag's worth?

As someone who spends my days looking at rows of tonne bags I can say that nearly everyone calls them 'tonne bags' but that most wont even take a tonne of gravel (ours do but we aren't the norm) so a whole 'tonne bag' of woodCHIP would probably weigh in at well under half a tonne and as low as 150kg and that's not even wood shavings which are considerably lighter and loose will be very bulky.

I'd be surprised if half a tonne bag of loose woodshavings is more than two or three bales worth and with loose stuff you have variable qualities too

If its an actual half tonne its not going to fit in to one bag but if its a genuine half tonne (say in several bags) then check the quality and if its good snap their hands off
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Ahhh! Good one. No my bag is a 1/2 tonne bag (not 1/2 tonne weight), so maybe bales would be better- Never thought!
 
Tabs said:
Ahhh! Good one. No my bag is a 1/2 tonne bag (not 1/2 tonne weight), so maybe bales would be better- Never thought!
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I think you're right, you may only get 100kg at best and if it isn't good quality there would be a lot of wastage.
 
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