By Chris Aldridge

Kentucky Ag News

Competing on the iconic green shavings is a goal for many livestock exhibitors and horse riders/drivers at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville.

The story behind how the shavings became that unique bright shade of green goes back more than a half-century to the early 1970s.

Since 1900, the International Livestock Exposition was at Union Stock Yards in Chicago. When the huge complex closed in 1971, there was concern the expo would end as well. But a group of influential Kentucky livestock breeders approached then-Gov. Wendell Ford about creating a new major livestock show in Kentucky. Gov. Ford held a press conference in June 1973 announcing the first North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) would be Nov. 17-23, 1974, at the Kentucky Expo Center in Louisville.

In preparation, former Kentucky Department of Agriculture supervisor Harold Workman, who was appointed secretary-manager of NAILE, visited the 1973 American Royal Livestock Show in Kansas City and noticed green-tinted wood chips in the show rings. He decided those green shavings needed to be a part of Kentucky’s show, so he contacted Roy Gibson, founder of Feeders Supply Co. in Louisville, and the two friends went about developing green-tinted wood shavings of their own.

“Harold wanted a signature thing for the North American,” longtime Feeders Supply employee Rick Butler remembered. “They used food coloring and a hand pump spray bottle to color shavings and decided on this green color.”

“After much experimentation and sourcing of just the right colorings, the green shavings were born,” former Feeders Supply Marketing Director Linda Brock wrote regarding the shavings.

Although developed for NAILE, the green shavings made their debut in the 1974 World’s Championship Horse Show. Fifty years later, Feeders Supply still provides feed, bedding, and the green shavings for the World’s Championship and NAILE, as well as the State Fair livestock shows in Broadbent Arena.

As the 1980s began, a change had to be made because of the limitations of food coloring.

“The problem was we couldn’t use water on it or it would wash out the color,” Butler said. “We used a golf cart with a boom sprayer to recolor the shavings. We colored a whole lot of white fences green until they came up with the dye we use now.”

The universities of Kentucky and Louisville developed the green non-toxic dye used today that is safe for the livestock and their handlers. The dye is applied to the shavings and dried before it is put down inside the show rings.

“It was important that the coloring used would not stain the animals’ feet and it needed to be safe in case an animal consumed any of it,” Brock stated. “Plus, it needed to adhere to the wood shavings so that the show rings would stand up to the use of hundreds of show animals.

“The green color was not in common use at that time (50 years ago),” she added. “Thus, was born the ‘tradition’ of the green shavings at the Kentucky Expo Center shows. Today, when people in the livestock business see a photo or video of a show on green shavings, they most times assume that it was happening in Louisville.”

“The green shavings are what makes us special,” Kentucky Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Warren Beeler said. “It makes us stand out.”