I like twine better, and mice and rats enjoy sisal twine more then the plastic variety.(for the earlier op) However, wire bales can be made much heavier and more tightly bound then twine bales so one bale will go further if you are looking for that. I hate putting flakes of wire baled hay out and then later finding pieces of wire that the baling machine left in the bale out in the paddock. That to me is an accident waiting to happen. It will happen if you use wire bales and it no matter how hard you look when you put the flakes out, you WILL miss some at some point. I had to switch after one winter and go back to twine for this reason alone.
Although finding any foreign matter in hay is definitely bad and we should not have anything there, some things do get baled in there.
I think that between wire pieces or twine, both are bad, although a horse may discover and not take in wire quicker than twine, if he is a gulper.
Most horses are careful of what they eat and won’t pick up or swallow strange things, but it does happen.
As for useful, we use all baling wire, but throw away most twine.
Moot question any more, because all local bales seem to be twine any more, to the point that we had to get wire in rolls to go along fences, because we ran out of our baling wire stack.
[QUOTE=hosspuller;4299815]
I’ve a few acres I’m considering putting to a hay crop for my horses and excess for sale. I’ll have to purchase hay equipment. A local square baler is up for sale, but it’s a wire baler. The few times I’ve purchased wire baled hay, I’ve really liked the wire. Just needed a wire cutter to open the bale. The used wire went to my metal recycle barrel.
What are your feelings about wire vs twine baled hay? and your location?[/QUOTE]
I hate wire: HAVE to have wire cutters if you just want to grab that one extra flake, the wires pile up in a pointy mess, we had em with small sqare bales before we baled our own and it hurts the hands to cart around wire clad bales…
If you like wire and can get a really good deal on the bailer, I say, “Go for it.”
You won’t have scads of 4’ lengths of bailing twine, but you can always go buy a nice, neat roll of it from the local supply store for very little $$.
I would even be so bold as to mount it on the wall like a paper towel roll, all you’d need is a 2x4 and a wooden dowel. Voila. Easy access twine, cut to length. (And none of the usual mess of containing it until you can use it…)
[QUOTE=camohn;4301329]
I hate wire: HAVE to have wire cutters if you just want to grab that one extra flake, the wires pile up in a pointy mess, we had em with small sqare bales before we baled our own and it hurts the hands to cart around wire clad bales…[/QUOTE]
You DON’T have to have a wire cutter. If you look at one of the four corners (on the long sides of the bale) you will find where the wire had been twisted together from the baler. You just have to find those two places on the wire and untwist it to get the bale undown. I have been using this method for years because I would misplace the wire cutters or just tooo lazy to go find a pare.
Thanks …
Thanks to all who have replied. Seems like the COTH wants twine bales. I’ll have to reconsider how much hay, I want to sell
As I prefaced in my OP, I like wire bales. It just takes a few precautions to enjoy all the advantages that other posters have discussed.
Hold one end of the wire while cutting it, keep your body away from the free end as you’re cutting.
Immediately after cutting the wire, bend the ends over to avoid the sharp ends. This also gives you something to grab to reclose the bale if desired.
Nearly all pliers have a cutting notch in their jaws. Even the cheapest plier of mine have the notch. Special cutters aren’t required. The baling wire is soft iron.
Hay hooks are your friend when handling wire baled hay. Gloves are your second best friend
When the bale is consumed, loop the wire like a lounge line and give it a wring like a towel. This keeps it from making a tangled mess.
Recycle the wire with the empty food cans.
Thanks again to all who replied.
What kind of hay are you planning to put up and where in NC are you? Just curious! 
We used to have wire - very useful stuff, as Bluey said. Used it for all kinds of stuff. When the farmers switched we were sure the place would fall apart, but the twine is easier. Always poly twine & usually ugly colors. The twine can be pretty handy, too, although not as good as baling wire. Much easier to deal with & we don’t have to worry about not being able to find the cutters.
Orchard grass… Greensboro, NC
It’s all about whatever you get used to and what part of the country you live in. When I lived in Illinois, all we had were twine bales. When I moved to Oklahoma, everything was baled with wire. Initially I hated it (I don’t “do” change well), but now I really dislike the twine bales that come across. I had a horse choke horribly on a piece of twine that got baled up inside the bale, but if a piece of wire gets in there, they will leave it alone.
I also like the fact that if you do not have wire cutters, you can untwist the wire to open a bale. I have yet to be able to rip apart baling twine :winkgrin:
Liz
[QUOTE=hosspuller;4304623]
Thanks to all who have replied. Seems like the COTH wants twine bales. I’ll have to reconsider how much hay, I want to sell
wire ties scare most east coast folks and most folks on COTH are east coast;)
have you considered poly ?? we prefer it to any twine 
Wire or twine?
You’ve heard from a good number of people about experience with wire and twine bales. The safety precautions are excellent advice, mostly just common sense. There are advantages to either wire or twine; one of the things you may discover quickly with the wire baler is that, as one member posted, bale integrity is easier to establish and maintain with wire. This is really valuable with straw. Wire baled straw bales generally (not always, as it depends on the operator) will have more weight as you can pack more in the bale without breaking the twine. One of the huge advantages to wire straw bales is the fact that mice will not be able to chew through the wire as they do with twine–both plastic and sisal (natural fiber).
Sisal twine is the least desirable for straw as the mice will not just chew through it if it’s in their “way”, they will actually seek it out for nesting. Plastic twine usually is stronger and less likely to rot on the bottom layer, but the mice will still chew through it. The mice are much more active in straw because at one time there was wheat or oats in the heads of the stalks, and most often there are a few residual grains left sprinkled throughout the bale that the harvester failed to remove.
Finally, anyone who says that a wire baler is easily switched over to a twine baler better have about $4000 (that’s right, four thousand dollars) and a good mechanic handy because it’s not something you do on Saturday morning with a crescent wrench and a phillips screwdriver and a can of Mountain Dew. Besides two knotters (1400 bucks APIECE) and two needles, twine case, twine brakes–you’ve got over 4 grand in parts before you set foot in the shop.
Talking to my John Deere service man in central Illinois, I found out that there aren’t a lot of mechanics around who work on wire balers, but I wouldn’t let that scare me. Buy the baler if you want the kind of bales it delivers.
As a buyer of hay I vote for sisal twine.
Plastic is 2nd choice as it can be recycled so many ways, although not decomposing or burning well is a drawback.
I am an Accident Waiting to Happen, so wire would be dangerous for me
Just replying to an old thread … I eventually bought a twine baler. Been producing orchard grass hay for 5 years now … Local purchasers have been snapping my hay up. I must be selling it too cheaply.
Wire bale hold better when dropped to or from a storage area. I have made it a rule to always bend the cut tips back upon themselves. Too many close calls, and minor stabs.
Tallying the votes, wire is out. I have not seen wire bales in years around here. The only times I saw it years back were on the much larger 75-100+ lbs bales.
As Bluey said the knotter can be changed over on just about all balers. Not expensive but not cheap either when labor is included. The change and installation is not that tricky for the average to good DIY. But the Knotter has to be “set up, aligned” just right after installing the new parts to give trouble free operation. There is a bit of an “art” to this, trust me. Nothing worse than having baling problems especially knotter problems when you NEED to get hay out of the field and into the barn before a thunderstorm rolls in. Knotters that are out of alignment will kick out a few bales just fine and this miss-tie a few after that. Miss-tied bales blowout all over the place when they are “shot” out of the bale thrower.
Knowing how many bales have been run through the machine is good to know as is age. Problems do not come to light until you are in the middle of baling. It is good to have a relationship with a “field mechanic” before you need one. The good ones understand “time is of the essence” and will show up on site with all of the “likely” parts needed to get the baler up and running.
The “knotter” is a pretty cool bit of engineering. But it has a lot of moving parts, just about all of which need to maintain “close tolerances” and “play well” together to give trouble free operation. But certain “key” parts do wear out depending on how many bales have been made and or how well it has been maintained. So there will come a time when the Knotter will need a complete rebuild. My late 90’s (second owner) N-H 570 needed this done a few year ago, around $2,500.
I run Sisal for hay. I feel it is environmentally friendly after the string is throw out, biodegradable. Requires another famer to grow it. Twine that can end up in a paddock breaks down quickly. Less chances of a horse getting it wrapped around their leg and not breaking like plastic. Or getting wrapped up in my mowers.
I tend to run plastic for straw. I like to bale straw on the heavy side of things so it is compacted tight in the baler. But straw is very “fluffy” so when it leaves the baler it can expand pretty good putting a lot of tension on the twine. Sisal tends to break at the knots.
Making good hay is not nearly as easy as it looks. There is quite a learning curve to getting it right. Along with knowing/learning all the tricks of keeping the equipment running properly when needed. More than a few people I know tried for a couple of years and ended up with far more bad hay than good and gave up. They have a whole new appreciation for producers.
When friends ask me if they should give it a try. I say do as the lord leads you. But I am pretty sure in the end you will find you will be much better off finding an experience producer and “share crop” your hay field. Might be hard to do with only a few acres unless the person lives next door and or very close by.
We just cut 60 acres yesterday. The future forecast looked perfect until Saturday. That changed looking at the weather forecast this morning. Strong probability of thunderstorms tomorrow afternoon. There is going to a bit of “high anxiety” around the house tonight and tomorrow. My wife knows to stay clear of me for the next 24-36 hours.
Bit of a long reply to a short question. Typical of my posts. But most things are more complicated than face value. IMO and experience.
In the CA bay area (most of our hay comes from the central valley) - I have not seen wire in YEARS! Not since the late 80’s - it was handy for fixing stuff, but I use twine a million different ways.
We used a hay hook to twist the wire and break it if cutters were missing. Wire is stronger and we never had the broken mess that happens with twine. It has been a long time since we did wire . I would do whatever you can get.
Weird. I never thought much about wire vs twine. I will deal with either just fine, but I like wire better. Our wire cutter is always staying with the hay pile, and it is so much easier to keep the half-opened bale in one solid piece with wire. Hard to do that with twine. As to the “safety” hazard, you just need to bend the wire downward when you open it.
LOL, glad to see that I was not the only one that didn’t see this thread was started in 2009. Before my time on this forum.
OP glad to hear it worked out for you. Most don’t go the distance.
