# New advice re twine vs wrap



## Jim gore (May 14, 2011)

Have been bailing for 10 years with father always used twine biodegradable. Due to illness I am going to run hay now. Bail approx. 300-350 round bails per year Vermeer. Is it worth switching to bail wraps? The hay is stored outside. Need to make the most efficient use of time and hay. Have a busy medical practice also. Thanks!


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## panhandle9400 (Jan 17, 2010)

Jim, it is much faster to net wrap than it is to twine wrap rounds, also they will keep better net wrapped than just twine wrapped .I run jd 568 balers and they have never been loaded with twine so that tells you what is faster.If I was the one who was feeding bales they would have twine for it is easier to cut twine and pull off than net wrap.


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

Switched to net wrap in 2010 and it was much much faster. We kept our twine baler, but it didn't get run near as much. As for feeding, most of the time I thought it was easier with the net except when the bales were totally iced over, then it was easier to pull off the individual plastic twines.


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## Nitram (Apr 2, 2011)

OhioHay is right I wish I had net rap option when baling...but the wrap is a pain when feeding iced over bales and the cows are stepping on your feet... So depending on your area and amount of snow and ice you contend with


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Net saves me about 30 seconds a bale.So on 300 bales it would be about 2.5 hr time savings for the yr.Not a huge reason to change.But for me it comes to 25 hrs a yr.So it's a no brainer for me.

As far as feeding in winter and ice on bales I tip some bales up into the sun after bouncing them around and busting up the ice on them.Think ahead and do it after feeding some others that i did earlier.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

If I have iced over bales I just raise the loader full height and drop the bales a few times, then no problem getting net off. Used to have twine wrapped bales and in my opinion getting twine off when it's froze is still harder than getting froze net off.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

mlappin said:


> If I have iced over bales I just raise the loader full height and drop the bales a few times, then no problem getting net off. Used to have twine wrapped bales and in my opinion getting twine off when it's froze is still harder than getting froze net off.


Amen to that. That was the first thing that sold me on net wrap eleven years ago. Bought some net wrapped straw from a neighbor and had no problem pulling frozen net off of it, we were using an ax to chop the strings off of our string bales.


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## barnrope (Mar 22, 2010)

Before I had net I used sisal twine. It was a lot nicer to feed it. I just put the bales in and left the twine on and the cows would eat around it. The twine went into the manure and I barely ever saw it again. With Netwrap it never rots and when you don't get it all off the bale you WILL see and deal with it again sometime.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

barnrope said:


> Before I had net I used sisal twine. It was a lot nicer to feed it. I just put the bales in and left the twine on and the cows would eat around it. The twine went into the manure and I barely ever saw it again. With Netwrap it never rots and when you don't get it all off the bale you WILL see and deal with it again sometime.


Yeah, and so did half of your bale of hay. Twine wrapped bales are a joke, 50% of them will be rotted away by spring if left outside. No comparison between the loss on a netwrap bale and a twine bale. If you like making lots of bales and spending $4 diesel, keep on spinning twine bales.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I only use net wrap -- a little faster baling, but the big pay off is in storage and handling. Net wrap bales keep better no matter how they're stored. And handle better when moving down the road, stacking or feeding.

Ralph


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## mulberrygrovefamilyfarm (Feb 11, 2009)

As others have said if you are selling the hay, netwrap always seems to bring a little more, stores better, is easier to handle without the bale looking like it has been handled and is faster in the field. On the other side, everyplace is different and I don't store anything outside except the hay I feed to my cattle, but my feed hay doesn't rot outside from Nov - March because of the cold and snow, so sisal rot isn't an issue unless I leave them out for over a year. Because of the time required to get the wrap off when I'm feeding my hay I like feeding sisal wrapped hay. Like others have said, you can just drop a sisal bale in the feeder and let them eat without having to cut the wrap off and the time savings here is important as well, especially when it's -30 degrees with 25mph winds. The last issue is that sisal can be torn off when pulling the bales out of the snow bank where I don't usually have that issue with netwrap.


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