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McPhillips Woodshavings delivers quality animal bedding nationwide.
A flourishing business
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cPhillips Woodshavings Ltd. is one of Ireland’s leading distributors of wood shavings, delivering quality animal bedding to some of the country’s best-known poultry producers and equestrian centres. We caught up with proprietor Sean McPhillips at his North Monaghan base to find out more about this exceptional family business.
McPhillips Woodshavings Ltd. supplies animal bedding to the poultry, equestrian and dairy (sawdust) sectors nationwide. A quick glance at their customer list speaks for itself, revealing names like Grove Turkeys, Cobb Europe, Cavan Equestrian Centre, Hogans Turkeys, Whitaker Turkeys, Western Brand Group and Manor Farm Group. McPhillips’ high-quality products are 100% pure white softwood kiln-dried shavings with no recycled materials or MDF content. Every bale is dust extracted and composed of clean dry soft wood shavings, making it an excellent choice for animal bedding. The consistent quality of these bales is achieved through an advanced production and control process, providing an ultracompressed bale using state-of-the-art equipment. Each 25kg bale is vacuumpacked using a weather-proof, heavy gauge plastic cover which is then heatsealed. Bales are then built on a 36-strong IRISH TRACTOR & AGRI
pallet, which is in turn wrapped and protected from all weather conditions. Shavings are readily available in bales or bulk and sawdust can also be provided in bags or in bulk. The benefits of McPhillips wood shavings are manifold: quality-assured poultry bedding offers biosecurity, excellent absorption, comfort, hygiene and better crop results; sawdust is super absorbent, ideal for cow mats and offers a practical and value-for-money solution; equestrian shavings boast excellent soakage and absorption properties and are also soft, comfortable and easy to muck out. Reflecting on the genesis of the family business, Sean McPhillips notes: “My late father, John, started the business in 1979 and I took over in 2010. We used to trade as John McPhillips Shavings but rebranded as McPhillips Woodshavings Ltd. five years ago. “My father had broiler chickens himself and was also farming beef cattle. He found that it was very difficult to get a good supply of quality shavings so he started getting them himself from Agnew & Co., the timber importers in Redhills, County Cavan. They just had a small mill at the time and as they have grown, we have grown. He started using those shavings on his own farm and soon enough other poultry growers in the locality were making enquiries about them and he realised that there could be a business opportunity there, so he started supplying them.
“From there, we branched out and got into different timber mills in Dublin, Galway (ECC, Cornamona) and Clare and started bringing the shavings up to Monaghan for distribution. One thing led to another and the business kept growing. He started to supply Grove Turkeys – and still does – and then Western Brand in Mayo also came on board and we picked up more and more customers before getting into the equestrian side of things about ten years ago.” The business model is simple but effective. “We take the shavings from the timber mills and distribute them into the poultry farms and other clients,” says Sean. “We have our own baler in situ at Agnew & Co., baling the 25kilo packs, which are popular with equestrian centres for topping up etc. As well as poultry farms and equestrian centres, we also supply dairy farmers with sawdust, straw and bales of
CONTACT DETAILS McPhillips Woodshavings Ltd.,
Drumloo South, Newbliss, County Monaghan. Tel: 047 54818 Mobile: 086 8844027 E: mcphillipsshavingsltd@gmail.com www.mcphillipsshavings.ie
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