Opinion survey: what's the best brand of poly twine for square balers?

could i talk you out of using the plastic stuff?

i guess its ok for feeding a few bales to a horse or two, but if you are not carefull the stuff will end up polluting your farm. it will never go away except to be collected by other equipment as Burrhead has already pointed out.

you nay have to store your hay more carefully with sissal, but after all the hard work involved with harvesting hay, its worth it.

sissal=quality hay, plastic=moist hay.

now nobody get excited, just my 2 pennies worth.

Please 'splain this statement to me?

and i'm not trying to be absolute with this, its somewhat a perception thing.

why do most people use poly? well the answer in my area is that they don't want to deal with bales that the sissal has rotted and fallen apart.

so if i see a bale of hay tied with sisal, i pretty much know that the bale was harvested transported, and stored under dry conditions. True? if i see poly, i'm thinking (i know itsa dangerous hobby for me) maybe moist conditions.

same with round, a week on the ground with sissal, and it rotts. if its not stored in a well protected area, it rotts. again round bale in sissal, good conditions, poly, no gaurantee.

listen,normally i would argue all day and night about the moral and ethical advantages of sissal over poly (i've had several emails on the topic already) but i've already had it out with VDOT, Building inspectors, and neighbors over trash and property lines so i've had about all the fun i want for 24 hours. tomarrow, maybe i'll spit more sparks.

i have heard of that problem, at this site i think. i have to admit that with round bales, tensile strength is not so critical. this was to be the year i was to square bale again for resale. but with last fall and this years extreamly low rain fall, that will not happen for another 3 years.

if manufactures of sisal twine let their quality fall, then they will lose market share. i guess we could see the day that its not available. i hope that does not happen. the wine industrie is having a simular discussion about cork vs plastic stoppers.

Also, I've not found anyone locally that uses anything but plastic twine. I don't know the reason for that, but it makes poly twine a lot easier to find.

I never saw and old square baler that would do good with poly twine.

I use sissal on round bales too. The poly twine left overs sure kill the seals in a brush hog come spring.

I guess using off the ground feeders would keep it out of the bushhog but then you have hardware disease in the cattle.

No offense taken, but when the wind is blowing, it's 5 below, I sometimes miss a twine ot 2.... I use a utility knife, cut the strings on one side, tie together (while on my 'forklift' style 3-point bale mover) throw the twines over the top, place the loop created on the upper link pin, and most come off when I set the bale & flip it on end. Depending on the mood of the cattle, my mood, & the weather, I still will miss a strand or 2...

--->Paul

I pick the bales up and roll all the string I can find off the bales but still end up with enough on the ground to get the bushhog seals ever year if any of us use poly.

They claim this poly is bio-degradable but some of it has been in a rented pasture for over 10 years and still has'nt degraded. I know it's over 10 years cause I've had it leased that long and have never used poly hay in it.

I sold down now but I usually run around 100-125 pair.

One point about doing all the poly collecting at feeding time is that it's just too danged much work especially in the rain and wind.

One of the neighbor's balers would wrap at least a 1/2 turn of twine under the hay, that one tends to break off in frozen hay no matter what you do...

--->Paul

I never saw and old square baler that would do good with poly twine.