market for cedar chips

[Polly]

 8) 8) i am wondering if any of you all have tried selling cedar chips to horse farms around lexington for horse bedding i understand a man in eastern ky can sell all he gets his hands on cedar is a lot better than straw smells better to just a thought cederman 8)

[Ron Wenrich]

20 years ago, I knew a guy that would take red cedar and run it through a planer.  He would take the shavings and dried them in an old clothes dryer.  Then he bagged it in baggies and sold it for 35¢ a pound to pet shops.  He would also use sassafras and cherry and anything that was aromatic.  35¢ a pound comes out to $700/ton.

It wasn't a big market at the time, but it was a good return for what he had invested.

[Cedarman]

American Wood Fibers plant at Lebanon Ky is supposedly running 35 semi loads of logs and slabs per week into shavings. A guy in Alabama is probably running a load a day.  Most is sold to the big box stores.  Salsco makes a small portable shaver that could be used for cedar.  Let the logs dry, run them.  He is doing this in the Lexington area.  At least someone was a few years ago. 

Contact a few mom and pop pet stores.

Another thing to do with sawdust is to put a dusting on the sidewalk or roadway to improve traction when it is icy. Just takes a light dusting.  Much better than salt IMHO.

Take the sawdust, add it to kitty litter and remarket on E-bay.

[thecfarm]

I'm no help.I live a few miles from you.But around here it would go good.I doubt 35 trucks load a week to start out with.There are a lot of people who own a horse or two and alot of farmers too.There's some guys around here that like it for dog beeding too.There was a small buisness that had cedar shavings,they were making the squares that go on top of 4X4 post,this was a waste product for them.They were selling garbage bags of shavings for 50¢ each.This was almost the same price as softwood shavings in 3.5 cubic bags,about $4.I would pay more for cedar.There was small pig farmer that bought from him that I know.He loved the cedar.Keeps down the flies.

[SPIKER]

Please note that the oils in cedars can and do make problems for lots of animals, the smaller pets do not do well in it for sure, hamsters gerbils guinea pigs ect all can die from it due to respiratory ailments.  we found this out after loosing 3 or 4 guinea pigs.   as a side note my niece has horses which she uses hardwood sawdust as bedding for, she likes it and the horses seem to be OK with it.   She as also been warned that hardwood is fine as long as it does not have any black walnut  and ??  : ??? something else type of wood I forget/forgot what it was.     Anyhow I know that the cedars are not good for most critters, and even when sawing it I'm told it can cause breathing problems if not done safely/... 

Any comments on this one way or the other???

markm

[Cedarman]

According to Cedarworks, the company we sold gobs of cedar, there was never a problem with ERC.  There is a big difference with WRC though but I have zero experience with WRC.   They distill lots of oil from ERC and it is used in many different items that come in contact with people. There are some people allergic to ERC.  But there are some people that are allergic to about anything.  Peanuts, anyone.