twine vs plastic?

[cowman]

I have always used twine on round bales. You seem to see more and more bales wrapped in plastic and I just wonder if that system is a lot better than twine?
Trying to pull twine off frozen bales can be a real pain in the butt and it seems like you never get all of it and quite often it gets wrapped around something or is hanging on the barbed wire!
My questions: Does plastic wrap cost more or less than twine? Does it add a lot to the cost of a baler? How hard is it to get off? Does it improve bale quality and value? How do you get rid of the used plastic? How do you put the plastic wrapped bale through a bale processor?

[cswilson]

As a hay buyer I'd rather buy twine wrapped bales myself but the guys using net wrap say it really speeds up baling-it is a pain to get off especially those new balers that edge wrap a bit too. It goes through a bale processor with no problem-not sure if cows eating plastic good for them lol. If your bales freeze down it really screws that wrap up

[grassfarmer]

It's quite a bit dearer than twine too - my friends that custom bale back home reckon the time they save justifies the extra cost but here my neighbours say they can't justify the extra cost. My bale pro won't chew it up, it just wraps around the rotor. I don't let anything other than a stray string get into my bale pro anyway as I don't want cows eating plastic. Agree it's a pain when frozen - to the ground or another bale, the bales just fall apart. Wrapping does save feed in storage though.

[grefer]

My neighbour had a demo last year and he gave it a thumbs down.Reasons he gave me were it was too expensive,the wrap came off when the bales froze down,if he put it through the processor there was alot of it in the feed.

[cswilson]

My neighbor just bought a net wrap baler-he works off farm too-he told me it is about 11/2 times faster than his twine baler. He was making 60 bales an hour with it. I guess the fuel you save by quicker tying and the increased capacity might help offset the cost. His shredder just eats up that softer net wrap with no trouble.

[cswilson]

My neighbor just bought a net wrap baler-he works off farm too-he told me it is about 11/2 times faster than his twine baler. He was making 60 bales an hour with it. I guess the fuel you save by quicker tying and the increased capacity might help offset the cost. His shredder just eats up that softer net wrap with no trouble.

[cswilson]

My neighbor just bought a net wrap baler-he works off farm too-he told me it is about 11/2 times faster than his twine baler. He was making 60 bales an hour with it. I guess the fuel you save by quicker tying and the increased capacity might help offset the cost. His shredder just eats up that softer net wrap with no trouble.

[cswilson]

My neighbor just bought a net wrap baler-he works off farm too-he told me it is about 11/2 times faster than his twine baler. He was making 60 bales an hour with it. I guess the fuel you save by quicker tying and the increased capacity might help offset the cost. His shredder just eats up that softer net wrap with no trouble.

[redcountry]

we have an new holland 648 it has both net and twine we have never used a full roll of net the only time its used is if the straw is very short and impossible for twine to hold
we run all straw through the tubeline wrapper and put one wrap of plastic on them
there is no crust of frozen straw on them in the winter and a breeze to shake out (dont have a bale buster)

the net is faster than the twine, two turns and out comes the bale the cost is near twice that of twine

shure like the bale slice feature on silage, would like to try the new one with a chopper in the pickup has anyone used this one?

[redcountry]

I buy hay, and will not buy another net wrapped bale. I don't use a bale processor and cutting the damn stuff off bales in -40 is not my idea of a winter outing !