For most equestrians, shavings are an afterthought: we focus on good hay and feed, clean water, arena and barn footing, and barn airflow to take care of our horses’ health and comfort. Many barns have stall mats, making bedding necessary only for urine absorption. Who wants to spend time researching and money investing in what is essentially toilet paper for our horses’ stalls? The natural response, especially with rising costs all around, is to look for the cheapest option and call it good enough.
While that might work for some programs where horses spend little to no time stalled, the reality is that everything in your horses’ stalls contributes to their health for better or for worse. Even if stall mats or mattresses are installed for support, a dusty shaving or one that absorbs inadequately will have adverse effects on respiratory systems and hoof health. No matter how meticulous your horse care is otherwise, poor shavings quality will show up in coughing horses, hives breakouts, hoof problems, and a barn that smells like ammonia. Below are some things to consider when weighing your shavings options:
Safety
Does your local lumber mill work with enough horse people to know that any black walnut wood run through their mill and delivered to you in the form of sawdust would be lethal? Do you know what types of wood they use, or does it vary monthly depending on their orders? Even if they’re not using any black walnut or pressure treated wood that could be toxic, a mix of different types of wood makes it difficult to pinpoint the cause if your horse develops an allergy or reacts badly to certain loads. Buying a load of bagged shavings from an established, reputable manufacturer like Pinecone Shavings gives horse owners peace of mind that each bag is filled with the same southern yellow pine, and that there is a crew of employees at the facility that does strict quality control.
Consistency
When you buy a load of bagged shavings like Pinecone Shavings, you know that they are kiln dried, filtered for low dust, and with the same usable volume in each bag. They are made for horses, not disposed of in your barn as a by-product. Each load has the same volume every time with none of the uncertainty of wondering how many cubic yards you might get in a dump trailer load. A load of cheap sawdust from your local lumber mill might be perfect one month and dusty the next, or it may have chunks of wood or other building materials mixed in—which is no fault of the lumber mill, just a reality that their shavings are a waste product of their operation rather than being intentionally made for horses.
Ease of Storage
Pinecone also makes storage easy with their thick plastic sleeve around the outsides of each pallet and a top cap to protect from weather. If you don’t have indoor storage, these shavings won’t get wet and disintegrate or blow away. Losing shavings to shrink with weaker bags that break or arrive wet adds up quickly. Bagged shavings ensure that you always have access to clean, dry shavings no matter the weather or storage conditions.
Cost
Cost per load is not an accurate way of comparing the cost of usable volume in bulk versus bagged shavings. While bulk is usually cheaper per load, the estimated cubic footage in a load of loose bulk shavings is less than the usable volume on a load of bagged shavings, where each bag is compressed and measured to have a consistent cubic footage. Your actual cost per cubic foot is likely not cheaper with bulk. Buying loose bulk shavings seems like saving money up front, but between shrink and smaller usable volume per load, investing in a load of bagged shavings will last longer and can end up being a more cost-effective option. Likewise, the added consistency of bagged shavings means that you know exactly how much you need to use for absorbency in each stall—there’s no variability with having to use more to keep stalls dry when a bulk load shows up that is a different product (flake size, quality, dryness) than the one before.
When selecting a bedding option that our horses are going to stand on and breathe in for eight or more hours per day, we have to factor in more than just the cheapest up-front cost.