Balers

[Soapweed]

Ranch77 that a very good point about taking your balers into a dealer during the winter. I always take our 3x3 baler in and it runs like a top its a Hesston 4755. I have not taking in our round baler in the last couple years and its really showing now. Just this week alone I have spent $1700 on our JD 566 (smoked the gear box) and then last night the shaft that runs from the gear box out to the chain on the left side of the baler snaped in two.

I would not buy a baler without net wrap saves so much time in the field. I timed it last night from when I had a full bale and it started to wrap to when i kicked it out the back was 15 sec (wraping to gates opening and closing). I dont care how big of a pain it is during the winter when I can go like that.

I'll bet the "time" saved during baling gets way more than offset when trying to get the netwrap untangled so it can be fed in the winter. Let's see, where would I rather spend that "time," in an air-conditioned tractor during haying, or standing around when it is twenty below outside, stomping on frozen feet, trying to get the frozen netwrap off so the cows can eat it? :wink:

 

[gcreekrch]

Ranch77 that a very good point about taking your balers into a dealer during the winter. I always take our 3x3 baler in and it runs like a top its a Hesston 4755. I have not taking in our round baler in the last couple years and its really showing now. Just this week alone I have spent $1700 on our JD 566 (smoked the gear box) and then last night the shaft that runs from the gear box out to the chain on the left side of the baler snaped in two.

I would not buy a baler without net wrap saves so much time in the field. I timed it last night from when I had a full bale and it started to wrap to when i kicked it out the back was 15 sec (wraping to gates opening and closing). I dont care how big of a pain it is during the winter when I can go like that.

I'll bet the "time" saved during baling gets way more than offset when trying to get the netwrap untangled so it can be fed in the winter. Let's see, where would I rather spend that "time," in an air-conditioned tractor during haying, or standing around when it is twenty below outside, stomping on frozen feet, trying to get the frozen netwrap off so the cows can eat it? :wink:

Naw Soap, ya just run that plastic chicken wire through the processor, thereby making it " cow palatable". :wink:

 

[Liveoak]

How many wraps of net are ya'll putting on those bales? 10? 15? Mine get 2 wraps. When the bales get fed they go out on their butt. Slice through the net wrap with your pocket knife, take one walk around the bale and your done!

My brother talked to a guy the other day who found a dead cow, body decomposed. There was a big wad of net wrap in the intestinal/stomach region. Why some folks leave it on the ground is beyond me . And dislodging it from the baler pick-up or rollers isn't any fun either!

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Ranch77 that a very good point about taking your balers into a dealer during the winter. I always take our 3x3 baler in and it runs like a top its a Hesston 4755. I have not taking in our round baler in the last couple years and its really showing now. Just this week alone I have spent $1700 on our JD 566 (smoked the gear box) and then last night the shaft that runs from the gear box out to the chain on the left side of the baler snaped in two.

I would not buy a baler without net wrap saves so much time in the field. I timed it last night from when I had a full bale and it started to wrap to when i kicked it out the back was 15 sec (wraping to gates opening and closing). I dont care how big of a pain it is during the winter when I can go like that.

I'll bet the "time" saved during baling gets way more than offset when trying to get the netwrap untangled so it can be fed in the winter. Let's see, where would I rather spend that "time," in an air-conditioned tractor during haying, or standing around when it is twenty below outside, stomping on frozen feet, trying to get the frozen netwrap off so the cows can eat it? :wink:

Naw Soap, ya just run that plastic chicken wire through the processor, thereby making it " cow palatable". :wink:

I don't really care for the net wrap but I don't usually have hay drying out while I am feeding in the winter but baling does seem to be a bit of a bottle neck of the haying process. :? I still use twine but when i trade balers it's going to be tough not to get the net wrap option.

 

[Soapweed]

I'll bet the "time" saved during baling gets way more than offset when trying to get the netwrap untangled so it can be fed in the winter. Let's see, where would I rather spend that "time," in an air-conditioned tractor during haying, or standing around when it is twenty below outside, stomping on frozen feet, trying to get the frozen netwrap off so the cows can eat it? :wink:

Naw Soap, ya just run that plastic chicken wire through the processor, thereby making it " cow palatable". :wink:

I don't really care for the net wrap but I don't usually have hay drying out while I am feeding in the winter but baling does seem to be a bit of a bottle neck of the haying process. :? I still use twine but when i trade balers it's going to be tough not to get the net wrap option.

Oh, but think of the money you'd save if you didn't get the netwrap option. :wink:

 

[gcreekrch]

I'll bet the "time" saved during baling gets way more than offset when trying to get the netwrap untangled so it can be fed in the winter. Let's see, where would I rather spend that "time," in an air-conditioned tractor during haying, or standing around when it is twenty below outside, stomping on frozen feet, trying to get the frozen netwrap off so the cows can eat it? :wink:

Naw Soap, ya just run that plastic chicken wire through the processor, thereby making it " cow palatable". :wink:

I don't really care for the net wrap but I don't usually have hay drying out while I am feeding in the winter but baling does seem to be a bit of a bottle neck of the haying process. :? I still use twine but when i trade balers it's going to be tough not to get the net wrap option.

It's bad enough beating iced-in plastic twine off bales in the winter, we have had bought hay that was net wrapped and iced over.....not fun.

Sisal is expensive to buy, cheap to feed.

Besides Big Muddy, you are supposed to enjoy baling, it gets you away from the computer. :wink:

 

[Soapweed]

How many wraps of net are ya'll putting on those bales? 10? 15? Mine get 2 wraps. When the bales get fed they go out on their butt. Slice through the net wrap with your pocket knife, take one walk around the bale and your done!

My brother talked to a guy the other day who found a dead cow, body decomposed. There was a big wad of net wrap in the intestinal/stomach region. Why some folks leave it on the ground is beyond me . And dislodging it from the baler pick-up or rollers isn't any fun either!

A consideration is that you live in Texas. I doubt if the netwrap freezes to the bale like it does in Nebraska. I bought a load of netwrapped alfalfa last winter, and told myself, "never again." :wink:

 

[Silver]

How many wraps of net are ya'll putting on those bales? 10? 15? Mine get 2 wraps. When the bales get fed they go out on their butt. Slice through the net wrap with your pocket knife, take one walk around the bale and your done!

My brother talked to a guy the other day who found a dead cow, body decomposed. There was a big wad of net wrap in the intestinal/stomach region. Why some folks leave it on the ground is beyond me . And dislodging it from the baler pick-up or rollers isn't any fun either!

A consideration is that you live in Texas. I doubt if the netwrap freezes to the bale like it does in Nebraska. I bought a load of netwrapped alfalfa last winter, and told myself, "never again." :wink:

It even adds to the frusteration when you shake the wrap out as good as you can and stack them up to burn..... just to discover that it won't burn. Which makes sense because there must have been some moisture in it to get the the frozen mess stage to begin with. I'm sitting here getting mad just thinking of netwrap. I better go pour a Crown and Coke and settle down :?

 

[tenbach79]

It takes less time to pull net wap off bales then pulling strings. Run your knife along the bale cut the wrap and pull the wrap and your done.

It does save time when your trying to get the hay off the field and move on to the next field. But I guess when you have someone else baling for you thats hard to understand :wink:

 

[Silver]

I never have pulled sisal strings off of bales at feeding time.

 

[tenbach79]

I was putting on 3 wraps. I am a custum guy and I cut with a disc bine cut hay at 9 mph or faster depending on the hay. How hard is it to pickup twine or net wrap off the ground so you dont swath over it.

 

[tenbach79]

Good for you

 

[Silver]

I was putting on 3 wraps. I am a custum guy and I cut with a disc bine cut hay at 9 mph or faster depending on the hay. How hard is it to pickup twine or net wrap off the ground so you dont swath over it.

Like I said, if I was a custom guy I'd use net wrap too. But I've played around with it in the winter time and it is a big deal, it comes with a layer of frozen hay which makes it difficult to deal with. Any kind of plastic missed on the feed ground is hell on discbine bearings. I don't pick sisal twine off the bales at feeding time, it goes away in it's own time. Quite often I take the old diamond harrows out in the spring and pick up any sisal that's left, it takes a minimum of time. For my own use I'll stick to sisal and keep all the plastic stuff out. If I lived somewhere where it didn't freeze at feeding time I might reconsider.

 

[Northern Rancher]

It's getting pretty hard to find hay not net wrapped in our country to buy. Went for a drive with Shauna and the kids tonight some huge hay crops here if the weather holds for ten days they'll be alot wrapped up. When I'm feeding with my deck I'm too short to lift that dang net up over the bale to pull it off-with the horse sleigh you just cut it and hang on as you drive ahead.

 

[Faster horses]

We use netwrap and like it. We went to Dickinson, ND today
and there is a lot of hay along the way...most of it is wrapped
with net wrap.

Mr. FH uses a bale processor and he has no problems with netwrap.
He prefers it, actually.

 

[Haytrucker]

I understand the net wrap question from several sides, as I have baled with it, fed with it, and hauled it's product. I can say the same thing about every type of twine known to North America. On average, in my experience, if your fighting frozen net, the twine is probably pretty stuck also, or else it's sisal, in which case you have very limited transport options. Love it or hate it, on commercial round bales net wrap will be the tie of choice.
Every time I have fed boughten hay it was dry enough that nothing would have frozen to the bale, twine or net. The home raised stuff was "ricked" end to end with an accumulater, with a snow gap dowm the center, and at -10 you cut the net off the high side, and drag the works off the ground to the flatbed and on to the next bale. Not always clean in a good breeze, but the cattle had good hay to eat.
As to the origional question, I've baled with JD 567's and 568's using net wrap, and liked them. I've hauled JD, NH, Hesston, and Vermeer big round bales, and my conclusion is that the operator makes more difference than the particular machine, from the truckers standpoint.
This is an interesting debate, with two less opinions than there hitch pins, IMO...

 

[burnt]

I guess everyone's situation is different and that will affect their choices. If we leave hay out over the winter here, it will have about 4 or 5" of spoilage by spring because of our fall rains and winter freeze/thaws.

So most of the hay around here is stored under some sort of cover -a building like mine or a tarp building.

So, net will not freeze onto the bale and peels off the way it went on in the summer. One slice with a utility knife while the bale is about 6" off the ground still on the prong and then just pull it off.

But for those who do leave it outside, they often prefer netwrap because it sheds more rainwater than twine. I use 2 wraps of net.

With the short baling weather windows that we get here in the east, 20 seconds per bale in time saving can make the difference between getting the hay off in good condition or having rained on crap that has crap feed value. So it's no question at all for most here. Net rules for obvious reasons.

 

[jeff in ca]

This what I bale with: Freeman 330s I have never used Sisal or net. Plug along baling about 150 bales an hour. These balers ate starting to show there age. They were all shimmed down 15 inch chambers in the 90's. Barn stored hay feeds the best, no matter the wrapper.

 

[John SD]

tenbach, you raise a good point about the dealer going over the baler in the off-season, but I can't help but think your gearbox problem and broken shaft would have happened regardless if you took it in to the dealer or not. It's not like anyone could tell something was visibly wrong unless the seals went out of the gearbox and lost the oil out.

My old Hesston 5500 sheared one of the shafts off in the gearbox. I bought another 5500 for not much more than what a new gearbox would have cost.

I've never used netwrap and don't intend to based on the comments from Soapweed and others about winter feeding. I only use sisal twine. If I'm feeding old crop bales I don't even worry about taking the twine off because it's mostly gone anyway. I hate plastic twine because if any gets away it's there forever.

I'm putting up hay here at the home place right now. My 856A baler normally feeds two twines out of one twine arm. I can trick the baler computer into thinking everything is going smoothly by feeding only one twine out and wrapping it around both sensor pulleys. :twisted: :wink:

With the twine setting I'm using a half wrap of 16000 sisal twine isn't much and it's spaced about 10 inches apart on the bale. I will row these bales up in the field end to end where they will stay until they are fed. Neighbor doesn't like stacking single wrapped bales so any that go into a 23 bale stack will be wrapped normally and moved witht the stackmover.

 

[floyd]

Hopefully, I have baled enough for my needs. Sisal here. Hate plastic. Handy for repairs but I still hate it.

I cut the strings because I hate tripping in a loop. I compost the sisal.

I'm a small operation...JD14T