Sisal twine

[Silver]

Has anybody priced out sisal for the upcoming season yet? Might have to go back to loose hay :shock:
I wonder what the deal is. I've heard stories of a plant burning down, a drought in sisal growing country, the death of the patriarch in the family that owns the factory and the kids are failing at running it.... anyway it's getting awful.

 

[RSL]

Silver, we have long been priced out of using Sisal, but this fall I ran across a product called Clearfield twine, which is supposed to be a plastic twine that biodegrades in about a year. I am not 100% convinced on a pallet of the stuff yet, but might give it a try this summer. Look up norheim ranching. Not sure who sells it in you neck of the woods.
I wouldn't mind hearing any feedback if anyone has used it.

 

[Silver]

I've been looking at that too RSL, was hoping someone had some experience with it.

 

[Soapweed]

The Clearfield brand is the most user-friendly of the different kinds of biodegradable twine we have used. Anymore, I prefer netwrap to any of the different kinds of twine. The netwrap is much easier to cut off of frozen bales, and when baling in the summertime the haying goes immensely faster. There is significantly less wear and tear on the baler, which should prolong its usable life.

 

[Mike]

Absolutely crazy that they won't let us grow the sisal hemp here in the states. Hell we could pay off that "Wall" with that.

 

[Silver]

The Clearfield brand is the most user-friendly of the different kinds of biodegradable twine we have used. Anymore, I prefer netwrap to any of the different kinds of twine. The netwrap is much easier to cut off of frozen bales, and when baling in the summertime the haying goes immensely faster. There is significantly less wear and tear on the baler, which should prolong its usable life.

I sure like baling with the netwrap, but I don't plan on using it again unless I have too. It has been a nightmare to feed, it freezes down to the ground and it freezes to the bale. I guess this is not the climate for it which is too bad because I had high hopes.
Glad to hear the Clearfield worked for you, I might try a little this year. I like the sisal because it makes feeding a breeze, no twine to pick up. Just an hour or two with the diamond harrows in the spring. Plus I don't have to worry about getting it wrapped up in the disc bine and taking out seals, bearings and more. Hopefully the Clearfield would not create similar problems to the plastic.

 

[Soapweed]

The Clearfield brand is the most user-friendly of the different kinds of biodegradable twine we have used. Anymore, I prefer netwrap to any of the different kinds of twine. The netwrap is much easier to cut off of frozen bales, and when baling in the summertime the haying goes immensely faster. There is significantly less wear and tear on the baler, which should prolong its usable life.

I sure like baling with the netwrap, but I don't plan on using it again unless I have too. It has been a nightmare to feed, it freezes down to the ground and it freezes to the bale. I guess this is not the climate for it which is too bad because I had high hopes.
Glad to hear the Clearfield worked for you, I might try a little this year. I like the sisal because it makes feeding a breeze, no twine to pick up. Just an hour or two with the diamond harrows in the spring. Plus I don't have to worry about getting it wrapped up in the disc bine and taking out seals, bearings and more. Hopefully the Clearfield would not create similar problems to the plastic.

The Clearfield twine looks nicer than another brand of biodegradable that we used. The Clearfield is a pretty faded yellow color that is not "obnoxious" to look at if a little bit doesn't get picked up. It coils nicely and burns well. The other stuff we used (and I don't remember its brand name) was a dirty brown color. It was "raggy" and didn't make nice coils. When you burned it, it burned forever which made leaving the fire somewhat of a problem. I thought at the time that candles should be made from that stuff, as it held a flame for many hours. It stunk badly, too. I think you will like the Clearfield.

 

[Soapweed]

I really do like netwrap, for both baling and for feeding. On purchased hay, I regard it like calf buyers regard preconditioning vaccinations. They won't pay extra for the shots, but they won't even buy calves without shots. That is my new stance on purchased hay. I won't pay extra for it being netwrapped, but I don't even plan to buy any hay that isn't netwrapped. :cboy:

 

[jodywy]

usually the biodegradable twine is bigger problem in wool then the old orange twine. like how sisal is picked up by a harrow , and what gets left is usually gone time haying starts in a wet meadow.

 

[LCP]

I buy alfalfa net wrapped mostly because it holds together nice when using the bale bed to feed. If I'm unrolling with the tractor or running it through the processor, I'll take sisal over anything else simply because I don't have to deal with it in the winter. This winter we are feeding 750 cows and the last thing I want to do is take net wrap off 30 bales every day. If I was setting up to bale graze and could take all the netwrap off in the fall, I'd consider it.

 

[PPRM]

The Clearfield brand is the most user-friendly of the different kinds of biodegradable twine we have used. Anymore, I prefer netwrap to any of the different kinds of twine. The netwrap is much easier to cut off of frozen bales, and when baling in the summertime the haying goes immensely faster. There is significantly less wear and tear on the baler, which should prolong its usable life.

I ran across "Silage Specials" in baling as the West side of our state does a ton of Silage Baling. I was amazed at how fine the cutters cut the hay going into the bale. Seemed to me like it did a better job than anything I had ever seen post baling at cutting up long hay. It would require Net Wrap to hold a bale together.

Unfortunately, this specific baler had to be parked as it had electronic issues beyond what I could fix. So, I didn't get to experiment as to feeding it. My main plan was into a mixer and then into a bunk. i'm not certain how it would roll off of a Hydrabed feeding cows in the field.