Round Bale Wrap

[Azenor]

I’m boarding at a new barn, and the BO doesn’t unwrap new bales before putting them in the feeder. (they do pick up the old wraps)

I’ve offered to buy a hay net so it would cover the whole bale and I assumed BO would remove the wrap once the bale is covered, but she says its complicated and time consuming to remove it, and that horses never eat the wrap anyway.
She uses a tractor/fork to put the new bale out, and its usually done about once a week.

I feel like I should insist it is removed as I’ve read article saying horses could eat it and get colic, and leaving it on also mean the horses eat from the top of the bale with their head in the air for a couple of days, which doesn’t seem ideal.

Am I wrong?

And if not, does anyone have an easy way to remove wrap from round bale while putting a net on? I’ve tried YouTube, but I haven’t found a good video

Thanks!

[NancyM]

Round bale wrap or twine is pretty easy to remove with a sharp knife. You just cut down the side of the bale, and it comes right off. Mine does, anyway. If it has been stored outside, and is covered with ice and snow, and frozen on, maybe not so easy I guess.

I usually just roll my round bales out onto the snow, no nets. So I can’t help you there with first hand experience. But occasionally I have put one in one of my big tire feeders… our 600 lb bales fit just right. I take the twine off after I’ve cargo strapped the bale onto my tractor bucket. Then pick it up and carry it to the tire feeder, and slide it in there. No net used. The tire feeder is pretty tight on the bale, not a lot goes onto the ground. And if it does, most of it gets eaten up.

I would NOT leave net or twine in or around a round bale being fed. Too much to get tangled up in, or ingest. If there are only a few horses to eat the hay, and you want to limit intake, then you don’t put a full round bale out. Just fork out what you want to offer for the meal, into a wheelbarrow, and put that in the feeder.

Sometimes I just unroll half a bale at a time… but again, no nets used.

[beau159]

@Azenor

I’m boarding at a new barn, and the BO doesn’t unwrap new bales before putting them in the feeder. (they do pick up the old wraps)

I’ve offered to buy a hay net so it would cover the whole bale and I assumed BO would remove the wrap once the bale is covered, but she says its complicated and time consuming to remove it, and that horses never eat the wrap anyway.
She uses a tractor/fork to put the new bale out, and its usually done about once a week.

I feel like I should insist it is removed as I’ve read article saying horses could eat it and get colic, and leaving it on also mean the horses eat from the top of the bale with their head in the air for a couple of days, which doesn’t seem ideal.

Am I wrong?

And if not, does anyone have an easy way to remove wrap from round bale while putting a net on? I’ve tried YouTube, but I haven’t found a good video

Thanks!

So you are saying that the BO leaves the NET WRAP on the round bale when they put it out?

It is NOT time consuming nor complicated to remove it.
The BO is just lazy.
That’s terrible.

My parents have 200 head of cattle they feed in brutal North Dakota winters (yes, we go through a lot of bales) and the net wrap is removed from every. single. one. when it is fed to the cattle.

My own horses, my bales have net wrap and I use a HayChix net. We set the bale out on its side, I cut the net wrap off with a utility knife, and then (if needed) peel off any funny looking layers from where the bale set on the ground, throw my HayChix net over the top, and then feeder goes over the top. Piece of cake. Easy. Not complicated.

[Djones]

Does she remove the wrap from the field when they are done with the bale?

It would take you 2 minutes to go out there in the field and cut the wrapper and stuff it out of the way. Its not ideal, no…but please tell me she pulls the netting out of the field when the bale is spent??

[BEJ]

As someone who has had round bale netting removed from a horse, TAKE IT OFF THE BALE AND REMOVE IT FROM THE FIELD! It is very fine and horses will ingest it.

That’s sheer laziness from BO.

[4horses]

I’ve had my horses grab a bite from a round roll and then had to grab them and reach in their mouth and pull the hay and net wrap out to stop them from eating it.

Maybe if you did it often enough the horses would learn not to eat it but that’s a risk I’m not taking.

All round rolls should have the net removed and put away somewhere out of reach. Horses are idiots. They will eat bale wrap.

[CHT]

It isn’t just the risk of ingestion, but also a risk of getting their tongue caught and torn in the net. Do they use feeders?

We used to try to use a round bale net with wrapped bales ,and it was extremely hard to get wrap off and the net on, particularly if there was any ice/snow on the bale, or if it was a bad hay year and the hay was cut short - so the bale fell apart as soon as you cut it.

The “Bale Condoms” have intrigued me, but you can’t use them with a shod horse (same with a net - risk of shoe getting caught.) the best option seems to be the poly feeders with a net: you slip the poly ring over the bale with a net over top- this allows you to just take the net off and slip the feeder over the bale.

We just opted to accept waste and fat horses with unnetted bales.

[Real_Rush]

It literally takes 2 seconds to cut the net wrapping off. I use cheap box cutters for the job. You can then either roll the bale a little bit more to get the part underneath out, or (what I do) is then push the bale up on its side and simply peel the rest of the netting off.

Agreed, the BO is just hella lazy. I would never, ever leave the binding on a round bale while it’s being fed, whether netting or strings.

[FjordBCRF]

This would be a problem for me. When I was at the Danger Barn, it was a co-op, and we would cut the wrap off rounds (its very easy to do). After I left, no one continued, and it was about a year later a new boarder there lost their horse because it got its leg strung up in the wrap. Leg got super infected and the horse was put down.

[cnd8]

Removing wrap is easy. You literally run a knife down the side of the bale and take the wrap off in one piece.

We net all our roundbales where I board. While the roundbale is on the tractor spear, she puts on the net, but leaves the end untied. She reaches in and cuts the wrap with her knife. She ties up the end of the net, and places it into the hay ring. Takes a few minutes, literally, but nothing complicated or time consuming.

[trubandloki]

@Djones

Does she remove the wrap from the field when they are done with the bale?

Maybe the OP edited after you posted, but it is now in the first sentence of the original post.

@Azenor

(they do pick up the old wraps)

@Azenor

I feel like I should insist it is removed

Just be aware that you can insist all you want, that does not mean it will happen and it does not mean you will be allowed to stay boarding there.

[FromTheGalaxy]

Definitely not a risk I would be willing to take with my horse, leaving any kind of wrapping or strings out on the hay. I would have a polite conversation with the BO, and if they insist it is too much work then I would offer to do it myself. If they still push back, I would either ask for my horse to be put in a field with no round bale, or find a different barn to board at.

[Djones]

Thanks @trubandloki

It’s remarkable that she’s got the thing on the spear and won’t take 2 minutes to hop off, cut it, pull it, then set the bale in place. Certainly it’s not a disgusting globby mess that it is after the horses eat the bale.

[Calvincrowe]

This would be a hard, fast “get out of Dodge” moment for me. I dislike round bales for horses at the best of times but I’d refuse to stay in this situation. (yeah, I’m sure they’re good horse hay, but where I’m from they are usually crap, barely edible by cows so I’m biased)

Our neighbors don’t remove the PLASTIC from their round bales they feed to their beef cattle! They literally dump them and leave, letting the poor, half starved cattle chew through it and the netting to reach the hay. They also never clean up the debris. When they toss squares, they cut the twine…sometimes…but never pick it up. So, we have netting, plastic and twine blowing and decorating the 1000 feet of fence line we share. So attractive! Have they harmed their cattle? Yes, two have died over the last year, mysteriously. I (and my vet who stares out there, aghast) suspect strongly ingestion of foreign matter. Pure, unadulterated laziness and carelessness.

[Azenor]

Thanks for mentioning “Bale Condoms”!
I’ve looked into it, and they look easy and efficient. Horses do not have shoes, and the bale will be dropped in its wooden box feeder anyway, so out of hooves reach, unless a horse rear at the bale. (But then I guess we never know with horses?)

I’ve offered to order, and BO has agreed to try it out. Hoping it will live up to my expectations

[Azenor]

Fortunately she’s usually open to reasonable suggestions/demands. Its one of the reason I choose to move there

She has agreed to test out a different type of hay net.

[Djones]

The bale condoms are much fussier and require wrestling them on. I had one and sold it after a winter of fighting with it. Imagine putting a sock on a round bale by yourself. Yeaaahhhh, no.

A net is a million times easier to put on by one person.

[Leather]

Yeah it literally takes just a few seconds to cut the net off of a bale - just keep a knife or box cutter in the tractor.

@Azenor

And if not, does anyone have an easy way to remove wrap from round bale while putting a net on?

Here’s how to do it with a skid loader. It shows 2 people but I manage to do it by myself, just takes a little bit of climbing.
Hay net with skid loader

Here’s one using the 3 pt hitch of a tractor and with 1 person - this would probably be more similar to a tractor with forks.
Net with tractor

A slightly different technique for putting on a net with a tractor - I think this would probably only work with a larger hole net.
Net with tractor second technique

[cutter99]

We feed round bales to both cattle and horses.

When we refill the feeders, we position the bale over the feeder, lower the bale enough so it is reachable and cut the wrap at the bottom, then pull it from the other side of the bale. We can even get this accomplished safely with a bull in the cattle area. Takes a little care, but we get it done.

Once the wrap is removed, the bale is fully dropped. We keep both a knife and box cutter in the tractor tool box, so they are always handy.

To not remove them immediately is just plain lazy!

I would not as much be concerned with a horse eating wraps, as much as I would hanging a leg up in them, resulting in either cuts or broken bones. Those bale wraps are strong!

Another reason to remove them immediately is just plain litter! They can blow, and it just gives outsiders one more reason to hate horses, horse people and agriculture in general.

[RedHorses]

Buy one that’s too big. If the bales are 5’ bales, buy the 6’ bale net. The larger net is much easier to put on the bale than the snug one. Especially if it’s one person doing it.