# wire tie vs twine



## dasiders63 (Jul 7, 2013)

I am in the market for a little newer baler to replace the old 24t. jd neighbor has a real nice 336 jd but it is a wire tie. what are the advantages and disadvantages of wire or twine. trying to make up my mind about the baler. thanks David


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## urednecku (Oct 18, 2010)

I don't know of any wire ties around here, so I would expect the market would be one of the biggest. Only wire tied I remember seeing around here was alfalfa trucked in from I think Texas.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

North Central Texas likes the wire ties for some reason. I was made fun of by some Texas guys that came to buy some Alfalfa a few years ago for being behind the times with my twine bales. Behind? Everywhere else uses twine. Can you even buy a new wire tie baler?


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Some hay buyers might frown on the wire.Maybe afraid of getting hardware.And they maybe harder on their hands then twine.


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

Growing up in South Texas, all I ever saw was wire tied bales. It was useful. If you had baling wire, all you needed was a screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and some Permatex....you could fix anything on the place. I still see wire tied bales in the central part of the State, but very seldom around here. Everyone uses plastic except me. I use sisal.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

*That's why they inveted duct tape and tarp straps to replace baleing wire.*


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## bjr (Jan 24, 2013)

Mike120

What baler are using the Sisal on? I have a NH269 that I failed miserbly to run Sisal on. Just would not tie a knot. Finally had to give up a put on a coulple of poly twine balls and it finally made a couple of bales in row (stll fighting the no knot thing). bjr


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## gradyjohn (Jul 17, 2012)

dasiders63 said:


> I am in the market for a little newer baler to replace the old 24t. jd neighbor has a real nice 336 jd but it is a wire tie. what are the advantages and disadvantages of wire or twine. trying to make up my mind about the baler. thanks David


Ok, I will do the best I can to respond to your question. Wire tie balers are mostly in North Texas ... Ok ... Ark ... and a part of Mo. Horse people prefer wire over twine. But during the drought I noticed a lot of twine timothy and alfalfa from the north and they weren't bitching. I have a 338JD wire. I love lugging the 125# boxes. Not being able to toss them in the back seat is just great because you always have to have room in the bed of the truck to put them. Love the cost of 69 to 79 dollars/roll. That is a $140-160/666 bales cost compared to $80/1000 on twine. Oh! don't forget they cost more than twine and only NH and JD makes them. I would love to have a Massey 1839 but the twine goes accross the cut edge and the horse people would complain about that. If I could I would have a BC5070 Hayliner Twine. In your area I would imagine most have twine so go with it. If you get a JD go for the 348. If your customers don't care ... go twine. My figures are based on 36" bales and I might be off on the twine a little.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

gradyjohn said:


> Ok, I will do the best I can to respond to your question. Wire tie balers are mostly in North Texas ... Ok ... Ark ... and a part of Mo. Horse people prefer wire over twine. But during the drought I noticed a lot of twine timothy and alfalfa from the north and they weren't bitching. I have a 338JD wire. I love lugging the 125# boxes. Not being able to toss them in the back seat is just great because you always have to have room in the bed of the truck to put them. Love the cost of 69 to 79 dollars/roll. That is a $140-160/666 bales cost compared to $80/1000 on twine. Oh! don't forget they cost more than twine and only NH and JD makes them. I would love to have a Massey 1839 but the twine goes accross the cut edge and the horse people would complain about that. If I could I would have a BC5070 Hayliner Twine. In your area I would imagine most have twine so go with it. If you get a JD go for the 348. If your customers don't care ... go twine. My figures are based on 36" bales and I might be off on the twine a little.


Why do the horsey people in your area like wire so much? Or is it because they know of nothing else? I've only seen a wire tied bale a couple times in my life and thought to myself. Why?


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## wildcat (Oct 20, 2012)

We have an older JD 336 that we use for baling of straw that we plan on storing. Don't have any problems with busted bales in the barn making a mess with the wire tied bales. However we use the newer JD 348 twine baler for most other reasons due to the extra cost of the wire.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

It's hard to believe there are people anywhere that like wire over twine...just for safety reasons...I would bet the twister is more dependable than the knotter tho....albeit, I do have a ball of baling wire....just in case I have to fix something....


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

We always hated getting wire tied bales at the dairy. SE Iowa was a mix of wire and twine, for those that still square baled. Usually the guys that did a lot of custom small square baling used wire, and always JD balers. I new some folks that bought in their hay would not accept wire tied, but that is definitely a customer preference.

We had more issues unloading semi's (by hand) breaking wire tied bales. Usually when throwing baled from the top layer and landing on end. Not sure how many folks still unload semi's by hand these days.


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## gradyjohn (Jul 17, 2012)

Teslan said:


> Why do the horsey people in your area like wire so much? Or is it because they know of nothing else? I've only seen a wire tied bale a couple times in my life and thought to myself. Why?


Yes and No. They are learning. Going back to rats in the barn. We stack hay on the side which leaves the wire on the side of the bale. Would be the same with twine. Improvement in twine now is rat resistant. Horses eating the twine they feel would be a problen ... duh! they fee round bales with twine. Hopefully it will change. They also worry about the little loop left from the twine. Again most twine is biodegradeable. Texas A&M said is would not harm the horse. Twine is much easier to dispose.


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

bjr said:


> Mike120
> 
> What baler are using the Sisal on? I have a NH269 that I failed miserbly to run Sisal on. Just would not tie a knot. Finally had to give up a put on a coulple of poly twine balls and it finally made a couple of bales in row (stll fighting the no knot thing). bjr


I always used it with my old IH37 'cause it wouldn't tie plastic and just carried it over when I got a JD328. I prefer the stuff. Damn plastic crawls across the ground and jumps into and wraps around every piece of rotating equipment I've got. I've never dug out a piece of sisal yet.


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## simangus (May 13, 2012)

wire tied bales if left out side for long the wire will rot. cost is also a big factor wire with the price of steel is costly compared to twine. old timers around here would say that one could not make heavy bales with twine compared to wire. i use bridon twine and i can easily make 100 lb bales with my hesston 4590, and the twine will hold no problem.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

bjr, you have a knotter problem, not a sisal/plastic problem.


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## ontario hay man (Jul 18, 2013)

Who wants 100 pound bales? Not this lad putting 15000 in the barn by hand lol. How does the wire not kill your hands. Also new holland does make new wire ties.


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## Nitram (Apr 2, 2011)

Hay hook and gloves! Grew up throwing wire. Big rounds for me.


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## simmy (Apr 12, 2013)

No I stay away from the 100 lbs bales I also went to rounders . I only custom bale smalls any more . But I grew 
up picking both wire and twine and wire bales will eat up your hands .I learned how to use a a bale hook quick.


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

bjr said:


> Mike120
> 
> What baler are using the Sisal on? I have a NH269 that I failed miserbly to run Sisal on. Just would not tie a knot. Finally had to give up a put on a coulple of poly twine balls and it finally made a couple of bales in row (stll fighting the no knot thing). bjr


bjr,

First, Mike 120 is defiantly the baler god on this forum! he has helped me fix my baler issues. I recently had some grease fittings on my 565 knotters that where clogged. I had to take them apart. That in itself will teach you a ton. I also had one that would miss the knot. Mike told me to change the cutters, that helped, as well I found that one of the springs on my hay dogs was broken. It just happened to be on the side that was miss tying.

While I was doing my research I believe I found that they make two different styles of bill hooks, one was better for sisal.

I look forward to Mike 120 chiming in to see if i'm on the right track.


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Never seen a wire tie in Vermont or Wisconsin.


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## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

Grade of twine may make a difference also. I bought my 570 new in 08. Some genius at NH decided to save 59 cents a baler by changing the manufacturer of the twine knives on the knotters. Out of the first 1600 bales, at least 1200 burst being thrown to the wagon-knives were cutting 3/4 of the way through the twine in front of the knot (not behind the knot). The local dealers mechanic spent a lot of hours in my hay wagons rebaling hay. Not knowing what the problem was (poorly made knotter knife) the mechanic put on new ones which produced the same result-drove us all nuts. Love my baler now, but I was hatin life in 08.

I used to use 9600 twine from Tractor supply. Worked fine in the NH273 ground drop and worked fine in the 315 with a 70 kicker. But I have consistantly used NH 7200 sisal in my 570 with a hydraulic chamber and 72 thrower. No burn through on strings when they sit in queue too long.

I did wire when I was a kid. Learned how to fix anything with baling wire. There was no space program and no duct tape, super glue or any of that other now necessary stuff. Wire was pure. That said, I would not touch wire bales, a wire baler or anything else that makes a 80-100# bale. My customers asked me to shrink bales and make them 40-45# at most so they could handle them. I am not shipping long haul which I understand changes the situation.

However, if I were going to make hay grenades, I would use three piece shipping tape, not wire. I'll bet that the barn on the farm that I grew up on still has wire hanging in the feed area from the 40s. A little wire goes a long way!


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## jturbo10 (Feb 28, 2011)

Threw wire bales for about 20 years without any problems except bailing wire disposal...we filled a lot of ditches with wire. Never had any problems with hardware consumption with beef and dairy cattle plus horses. Wire was cheap years ago but it is very expensive now. I could have bought an almost new John Deere 348 wire baler dirt cheap here in East Texas plus another low time one in the San Antonio area. Few people use wire here in East Texas for a variety of reasons. Never ever had a customer ask for wire and most of mine are horsey buyers. I was worried about the increasing rise in wire costs and the complaints from hay handlers about the wire, never had any with twine. We use high quality tensile strength twine in our 2012 New Holland small square baler and have fewer than 5 bale misses per 5000 bales, usually due to me not trimming the transfer knot on the next twine bale. I can buy a few dollars of baler wire and it will last for years so I don't know what people do with all that wire, except maybe recycle but that is a lot of work for little money. I wouldn't buy a wire baler as the costs to operate are a lot more and I couldn't get as much in a trade-in or sale. I believe knotters are more reliable than twister/cutters but I haven't used any of the new twine balers. I suspect the large 3 and 4 feet big square bales prefer wire but that is likely due to size and weight of bales. For me and my customers it is a no brainer...TWINE.


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