Why are shavings so expensive???????

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Cluny

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We were discussing this on the yard this morning, as shavings are now up to £7.50 a bale, I remember paying £4.50 a year and a half ago.

Someone said it's because the building industry are on a downturn so not so much byproducts. However I know that our local supplier (Mendip Shavings) who supply across the country and have the monopoly in a large area, grow their own softwood specifically for shavings so don't rely on the building industry.

Fuel costs have come down also so can't blame it on that. Although we've had a wet winter we seem to have no problem with straw supplies in our area and they haven't whacked the prices up.

So why are shavings so expensive and getting dearer by the minute, is it because the suppliers know they can get away with it and we're being made mugs out of?
 
We have mendip shavings over here - I stopped buying them ages ago as they are the most expensive shavings over here, I don't know anyone else who buys them either. We all use shavings from our local timber merchants - at the moment I'm paying £5.30 a bale if it reaches the price of the mendip(£7.50 here too) I am going to change to hemp.
My local feed place told me the other shavings will never be more expensive than hemp or easibed etc - and I was like what, it already is in some parts of the country, only a matter of time before it happens here! problem for her is that she makes more money off the mark up on the shavings than she does on the other beddings, so isn't keen for people to change, she won't even deliver the other beddings just shavings!
All us horsey people are rich - didn't you know ? We can afford a huge price hike in bedding that our horses only ***t on. I'm so tight now I'm even buying cheap loo roll for the house - I mean we buy it to throw away!!!
 
I think I mentioned the other day on here that I recently passed a lorry on the Antwerp ring loaded to the gills with shavings.
Funny thing was, it was a Yorkshire transport company, travelling in the direction of Calais.
Now....a trip on the boat,won't that make them a bit dearer?
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Fihunt, thanks for the feedback, trouble is I wonder how many shavings vendors actually get their product as a byproduct of the building trade, and how many grow their own softwood trees and produce their own.
 
A lot are purpose made, and a lot imported.
Our current supplier is providing Dutch shavings.
Value of £ to Euro will affect price too.
 
I think a lot of them are charging it because they know they can and people will still buy it. once prices go up they never seem to go down
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£8.50 a bale in places here! add to that they are selling 2 bales max per customer. I witnessed a right barney raging as they refused to sell 2 woman 4 bales in the same car. One lady was saying she has no transport so relied on her friend but shop was having none of it!
 
Because the construction industry of which I was a part of a few months ago (site secretary) has gone 'bump' due to the cost of housing, and companies not wanting to move because of the credit crunch. Therefore timber is not required for structures to be built, therefore shavings aren't produced. Its a nightmare for my Dad as he has for the last 12 years been getting me free shavings from the timber yard. now he finds that when he gets there every Tom, Dick or Harry are there and often someone from the local riding school comes with a huge lorry and about three working pupils and they nick all the shavings and he is lucky to get half a bag.
 
Think I can beat you all, as one supplier is charging £9.50 a bale my way, as its so hard to get hold of, he is jumping on the band waggon!!!
 
I spoke to our regional supplier recently as I was staggered at how expensive shavings had become from our local merchant. regional supplier couldnt deliver, even in bulk, for less than local man and assured me that he was certainly not ripping people off.

It IS the downturn in building and industry. Pallets and wood boxes form a huge part of packaging for bits of machinery and engines so until traditional industries pick up there is no wood available.
 
Mendip shavings are my favourite ones. I understand whether they grow their own wood or not that they are "short" and cannot keep up with demand. I'm OK for now, but I understand there was talk of them worrying about keeping up with long standing customers requirements like Scats (Mole Valley) back in the summer.

I have noticed that they are more dusty than they used to be and also I'm more likely to find reasonably large chunks of solid wood in them than I used to. Not bad enough to worry me yet, just a bit annoying.

I do know that they collect from sawmills all over the country as well.
 
sorry not removing it
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To be fair its the only one I could find, but as people swap to other bedding demand will drop and the price will drop

Besides never mind shavings, why are the feed companies holding us all to ransom? There was an excess of feed quality products this year and they haven't passed on the savings.
 
Actually, the diagram shows an increase in demand from D1 to D2 (a shift to the right is an increase) hence price is increased to meet the increase in quantity.

Its the same every year ... especially round christmas when all the mills close and there are no shavings. Also this year the goverment are doing something with alternative fuels and are buying all the shavings from the mills, hence less for horses.

Think there will be a shift to alternative products such as hemp, straw etc except according to basic economic theory this should lead to a decrease in the price of shavings. But when has anything horsey become cheaper?
 
Very true CBAnglo, forget stealth tax, it's Equestrian Added Tax (EAT) that gets me every time! I think there must be a myth put about that all horse owners are very rich!!!! More like bloody poor!
 
[ QUOTE ]
There was an excess of feed quality products this year and they haven't passed on the savings.

[/ QUOTE ]

They have here, ner, ner, ner
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love the graph!!!!! makes me feel like im back at uni! stupid maths i suck at it. I used to use Mendip from Scats at 7.50 ish now moved onto a chopped straw bedding with eucapyltus in it coz he is a stinky bu**er on mats that smell bad and they are 6.15 a bale. However all the savings i am making goes on my new spiller conditioning fibre, just changed form hifi original. the girl told me me today that shavings are hard to get hold of at the moment for some strange reason as lots of excess wood about but its the dust extracted stuff that id specially made from new wood (i think). But places like norway and sweden are like 90% wood so surely they supply lots of it at cheap ish price. However i noticed in the H and H that one bedding at cost price is 2.50 a bale and in out local place the same one is advertised at 5.50. So i think it is mark up by the horse shops, because, as Dols says, we are apparently rich if we own a horse!!!!!!
 
Druid you've just upset me - the nastiest 'cheap' nuts with many fluff and cardboard in them are £7.49 (€8.84) for 20kg.

Decent nuts are now £10 and mix around £12
 
my local feed merchant informed me today that it might be a good idea to "stock" up for the winter as he actually doesnt know when the next delivery will be
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for feed and bedding
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its taken me three days to get pony nuts and sugar beet as stockist thought he might be able to get soem tomorow ..then the next day...then the next day:(
Could be worse i guess! and probably will get worse!
 
My supplier told me there is a shortage due to the credit crunch. Basically shavings are a by-product of the building industry which is almost at a standstill - hence a shortage of shavings and increase in price. They are looking to import but we too have been told to stock up.
 
Please take it from someone who supplies a fair few shavings that there is not a mass rip off going on. We get shavings from Holland, Belgium and the UK. Since last September (07) the £/euro rate has gone from 0.65 to 0.85 this November, this alone has put over £1.20 on each bale. Add to that that the credit crunch is not just the UK and that the shavings factories buy the product from the sawmills and are competig against each other means that the price of the raw material has gone up too. Add to that that it costs over £1000 to get a lorry load across the channel and into the southern counties let alone North, or west. This has meant that more people have sought alternatives from the uk and hence the supply and demand situation escalates. If it had been a good harvest then I would have expected a lot moe people to have gone onto straw or chopped straw, but the C**P weather meant that a lot of straw got ruined and so there is a shortage of that as well and hence the demand for other bedding has got even worse.
12 months ago we could order a lorry load of shavings and get it the next week. This year I am ordering shavings now for March delivery. So please do not give your suppliers too much aggro as they are having as much of a nightmare as you guys.

Mark
 
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well said Mark, my OH works for an Equestrian Forage supplier, they have shavings on backorders coming out of their ears, but getting reliable deliveries at the moment is not easy.
 
Aggree re Euro exchange rate, plus after a bad summer, we have had a wet Autumn and brough ours in at night a lot earlier this year.
Continuing bad weather means ours are in for more hours per day and wet weather means the stables are damper and bedding does not dry out during the day as well for putting beds back down at night, so we are using more.
 
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