WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN

CROGHAN — When William J. Meyer, a local farrier, saw horse bedding made from wood chips, it sparked an entrepreneurial urge.

"He came home with the idea and said, 'I need $1 million,'" said his wife, Lisa M. "My mouth just dropped."

Mr. Meyer then explained that he wanted to make wood shavings. He's been shoeing horses for 35 years and saw a related need. He's not the first in the north country to make wood shavings for animal bedding, but he saw more customers who weren't being served.

"It's kind of a crazy idea, but it's also a good idea," he said.

In the end, he started Black Beaver Shavings with considerably less than $1 million. But his fledgling business next to their home at 5660 Old State Road in the town of Croghan started turning out green wood shavings in November.

He started a 30-by-34-foot barn in October, which covers a large pile of shavings and the Salsco chipper and blower used to produce chips. The barn holds up to about 200 cubic yards of shavings, more than enough to fill a full-size tractor-trailer load. He uses a telescopic handler to load the shavings into waiting trucks or trailers.

The chipper converts about 3 tons per hour into 12 cubic yards of shavings. The amount depends on the density of the wood, Mr. Meyer said.

"There's a lot of difference in the weight of the wood," he said.

He prefers softer woods — poplar and basswood. Harder woods are better for firewood.

"The firewood market is so great. They get a better price," he said. "We don't get a lot of hardwood in here."

Instead, Mr. Meyer looks for loggers and landowners who have cleared softer woods from their land and don't have a lot of options for what to do with it.

"The tightest competition is in getting the raw material," he said. "We find the local guys and pay competitive prices."

He's trying to stockpile wood logs now before the ground gets muddy in the spring.

Mrs. Meyer said it's nice that the little business can help support some local landowners.

"There are a lot of people who are loggers or have cleared out their fields," she said.

Mr. Meyer has begun marketing the finished product locally, too. The finished chips, green and wet, aren't good for lactating cows but can be used for horses, heifers and calves. Mr. Meyer said one of his customers prefers the green chips because they don't have the dry dust that aggravates his horse's respiratory problem.

"We use it for our own horses," he said. "It's dust-free. It's a nice bed for horses."

But eventually, Mr. Meyer said, he wants to have a dryer and bagger to make dry chips, which are better for cows.

"That's where the best money is," he said. "It will take a couple of years, then we'll make the next step."

The slow business growth plan was a product of help at Jefferson Community College, Watertown. Mr. Meyer took an entrepreneurial class on business plans at JCC. He followed that with help from the Small Business Development Center at JCC.

F. Eric Constance, director, "helped finish the financial part of the plan," Mr. Meyer said.

"It's neat because he sought out the college first for a little knowledge," Mr. Constance said. "And as the plan evolved, he got more excited about it."

He said the center helped with research, projections and a financial plan.

"I got him to scale it down to something that was manageable," Mr. Constance said. "As we go through the project, you just feel comfortable that it's the right or it's not the right thing to do."

The center helps 800 small and new businesses each year.

For Black Beaver Shavings, the help from the center made it easier to find financing.

"When we went to the bank, they were very impressed with what we had done," Mrs. Meyer said.

To start a new business, the couple said, you need support from family and friends, the right equipment and another day job.

"This is going to be four or five years in coming," Mr. Meyer said. "The business is slowly building. Some weeks are good, others are not so good."