Wire-Tie Balers

Anyone still running a wire-tie baler? Here in the South I never saw one; just the old twine balers. the local Tractor Supply has several, 100-pound boxes of 14 ga baler wire, marked down from $89.99 to $10. I bought a couple boxes, just in case it gets hard to find...

Somehow store it so it doesn't get rusty. Worthless if rusty, even a little bit, for baling.

Still several running in West Central TX. Tuned up couple earlier this year. They dont oil the wire as much as used to. Been putting burnt oil in box when put on, shure helps with tying and stripping of twister shaft and hook.

NY used to produce a lot of small square bale 30 years ago a lot of it for the hay and straw market. The truckers preferred wire bales due to higher density/heavier load. Very few made anymore. Round and big squares predominate but most hay is chopped for haylage. The price of wire parked a lot of wire balers.

YES from west central MO, we just got done with 359 bales out of an IH 46 wire baler on the 880 Oliver diesel, didn't miss a bale!
we put used oil on box after installing in baler, and then oil that box some more when clean out the baler
and park for year in shed, better jump on that good buy, if close i would stock up on it!

This area of the country if you still have a wire baler send it to scrap yard unless it is a model to take to antique machinery shows. No one wants or will buy wire tye bales.

Haven't saw a wire baler since I was a kid.
Would like to find a couple of coils. Bailing wire has thousands of uses around the farm.

That is all I see here in central Oklahoma. A good friend of mine bales about 10,000 bales a year of bermuda hay with wire. I know of a couple of guys that are using twine now but not many. Worked for a New Holland dealer in the early 80's and a service rep for the company said then that 75% of New Holland balers were twine and the wire balers were sold in Oklahoma and Texas.

My buddy is still using a wire tie baler - its a newer baler but I'm not sure of the year. He's selling to horse people and I'm a bit surprised they buy them as I have heard many horse people are afraid of wire. There has to be a lot of people using wire to make having wire available or they would stop making it.

$10 for a hundred pounds of farmer's duct tape ain't bad!

As a kid most straw was wire tied,but hay was string tied. Bits of wire in cattle feed is not good.

Here in Kansas prairie hay country most small square bales were wire tied. Just not that many small squares made anymore. Man I would like to find some $10 wire. Ive baled just over 4000 bales so far this summer, all with the $90 wire. Usually figure about 750 bales out of two boxes of wire. Everyone here has gone to large square bales which use nylon twine. I dont fully understand the reluctance to feeding wire tied bales. There should be no small pieces of wire in the hay, at least not from a properly operating baler. More likely carelessness on the part of the person cutting the wire when feeding.

when I was a kid there was at least one kind of baler that left a small cut off piece of wire on top of the bale. So you kicked the bale bottom side up so the wire piece would fall back on the ground. Neighbor had a John Deere wire tie, the bales came out the side, it cut the wire clean, no little piece left. But to this day when I'm in the field I still kick over the bale before I pick it up. Old habits die hard. John

Not everyone has gone to big squares. There are a lot of horse people and small operators that use small squares because They don't have the equipment to move and feed big squares. I do a couple hundred acres in small squares - I just moved away from wire tie as the horse people frowned on them. As I told them if they didn't want to feed wire to their horses - pull the wire off the bale. It was easier to buy a twine tie and charge them more.

We still use a wire tie baler. A 430w IHC. It never misses a bale if the wire don't snarl. I get a premium for my hay. But if wire doesn't go down will try a string baler.

Uuuummmm well I will share my experience.

I have only run wire balers for the family. Either a john Deere 224WS wire balers with v4 Wisconsin power unit or international 55W wire baler with later super A 123 power unit. Put 2,000 bales of grass hay thru the 224 this year. No straw bales yet this year. Wire comes from local co op Wilco that serves Oregon, Washington and idaho.

Neither of these balers leave cut off wires on the bale but I am sure I remember dad talking about different balers over the years that did cut off the long tail or ears of the knot and would leave the cut off bits on the bale. And some balers did it twice because they had knots at both ends of every bale.

Wire is an option still to this day. I just looked at case ih website to confirm. And for small balers, you can still order either way. Our family might run the oldest wire basler in the area but definitely not the only wire baler in the area.

And another question along the same line,
How many of you use a steering wheel when you windrow or swathe? What is that like? I have not yet had the chance to try it out.

I have only swathed or windrowrd with levers.
New holland 1469 with gas ford 134 engine, Heston 420 with Chrysler 170 slant 6 engine, or international 201 with ih 135 engine, all had steering levers that ran plantaries in the new holland and international, and ran belts on the Heston