Anybody found a "best way" or tool/machine design to remove frozen Net Wrap from Round bales?

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Studies have shown that in outdoor stored hay their is less spoilage with net wrap as well.

Exactly, it saves hay stored outside. Rain sheds off the bales better with net wrap. I may not get the super low temps Canadians get, but we have a very moist cold. We put up mostly baleage (net wrapped & plastic wrapped) - but - I also put up some dry bales stored outside. I would much rather pull net wrap off a frozen dry bale than any kind of twine. I used to have sisal, then plastic, then net wrap. Never go back!
When we have frozen bales, I drop the front end loader on top of the bale and squish it down. It breaks up the ice/frozen snow all the way down to bottom - if you squish it good enough. I may drop the bracket bar several places on the top of the bale before picking it up. I never tried dropping it, but I can see where that would work.

 

[Silver]

Exactly, it saves hay stored outside. Rain sheds off the bales better with net wrap. I may not get the super low temps Canadians get, but we have a very moist cold. We put up mostly baleage (net wrapped & plastic wrapped) - but - I also put up some dry bales stored outside. I would much rather pull net wrap off a frozen dry bale than any kind of twine. I used to have sisal, then plastic, then net wrap. Never go back!
When we have frozen bales, I drop the front end loader on top of the bale and squish it down. It breaks up the ice/frozen snow all the way down to bottom - if you squish it good enough. I may drop the bracket bar several places on the top of the bale before picking it up. I never tried dropping it, but I can see where that would work.

I never pull sisal twine. I'll drag the diamond harrows over the feed grounds in the spring to collect what I can and Mother Nature looks after what's left.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Sometimes I feed on the same ground that I will make hay on the next summer. In that short time frame the sisal won't rot down enough and will wrap in the discbine and wreck the oil seal and with time the bearings/gears..... speaking from experience on that one. Hahaha

Also watched a vet cut a dead that was full of sisal.....

 

[Silver]

I always feed on ground I make hay on the next summer. I just don't use the v-rake on it.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

I tore up the discbine which I used before the rake..... haha

 

[Silver]

I tore up the discbine which I used before the rake..... haha

I never have with sisal. Plastic is a show stopper. With sisal I'll pull the turtles occasionally and clean them up but have never compromised a seal.

 

[gcreekrch]

I never have with sisal. Plastic is a show stopper. With sisal I'll pull the turtles occasionally and clean them up but have never compromised a seal.

Neither have I with sisal.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Neither had I until the 1 time I did. And it cost a pile of money...

Even if the sisal was never an issue I would quit farming before I went back to using any sort of twine. Net wrap is worth every penny in time saved and hay preserved for me.

 

[Silver]

Net is too much of a PIA for me to deal with. I'd give up ranching if that's all that was available.

 

[wbvs58]

Well judging by all these answers there is no way to easily get the job done. Sounds like an opening for a creative inventor.

Ken

 

[Silver]

Well judging by all these answers there is no way to easily get the job done. Sounds like an opening for a creative inventor.

Ken

A few years back there was some excitement around a couple of patents for biodegradable/ edible wrap. Seems to have died on the table.

 

[RDFF]

Seems to me from the offerings here that the go-to "solution" is to take the mallet and beat the crap out of the ice, roll the big chunks of frozen net and dirt and hay up and throw it in the burn pile! Same "solution???" we've all been using , and cussing every bit of it as we do! (Unless we're in the "just grind everything through a processor group)....

 

[RDFF]

Well judging by all these answers there is no way to easily get the job done. Sounds like an opening for a creative inventor.

Ken

Would be nice if you could roll it up onto a cardboard center the same as when it went on! Once you get so much on a roll, just dump it on the pile to burn! Probably no way to do that efficiently though without taking at least a measured amount of hay with, and of course, if those bales have been sitting on the ground, a substantial amount of mud as well. And of course, those bales often aren't nearly as "round" as they were when they were made! Whatever "hooks" you'd have on the drum to grab the net would have to be there for each bale you wanted to unroll.... so THAT would be a problem...

You'd need some sort of full width "pincher" (the bales when you feed them ARE all perfectly flat all the way across, right?) that would reach against the bale to grab the net, pull back and then feed that piece of net into some rollers that would then feed it onto the collection drum. All sounds great and doable in theory, until you throw in the "frozen muddy bottoms" and out of round, no longer flat across the width factors!

 

[greybeard]

and 'stuff' sticking out of the bales.

 

[WFfarm]

Sheds water better than net-wrap and easy to remove in the winter. We use it over sisal twine.

 

[TCRanch]

Sheds water better than net-wrap and easy to remove in the winter. We use it over sisal twine.

View attachment 26030

I see a lot of that around here for cotton. Is it heavy, especially when wet or with a layer of ice? And how do you dispose of it?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Sheds water better than net-wrap and easy to remove in the winter. We use it over sisal twine.

View attachment 26030

We don't plastic wrap our dry bales (because of the expense), but we DO line them up end to end, as tight as my tractor can push them. Try it some time. When you pull out a bale, the ends are just like you had them in the barn. You don't ever want the round SIDES to touch with just net wrap. They will spoil really bad. The water follows the curve and goes INTO the bale, instead of just shedding off the bale.
Try a few end to end next year. See if you like it. Takes up less space also.
edit: it would almost be like using an in-line wrapper.

 

[WFfarm]

I see a lot of that around here for cotton. Is it heavy, especially when wet or with a layer of ice? And how do you dispose of it?

We make mostly 5x6 dry bales and we don't have a lot of barn space so 90% of our hay has to be stored outside. Wrapping like this takes a little effort, it's a two-man job, but it saves a lot of hay. I would estimate our spoilage went from 15-20% down to 5% or less. We are feeding some two year old bales recently that have no more spoilage than this summer's bales. We put 2-3 layers of the shrink wrap on, just enough so the stems don't poke thru. Not much ice build up and it easily comes off because it doesn't stick to the hay. We just put the plastic in the weekly garbage pickup. Three bale's wrap can stuff inside an empty Wind and Rain mineral bag. We figured $1.75 of wrap saves us about $8-10 worth of hay per bale.

 

[DNelson]

We make mostly 5x6 dry bales and we don't have a lot of barn space so 90% of our hay has to be stored outside. Wrapping like this takes a little effort, it's a two-man job, but it saves a lot of hay. I would estimate our spoilage went from 15-20% down to 5% or less. We are feeding some two year old bales recently that have no more spoilage than this summer's bales. We put 2-3 layers of the shrink wrap on, just enough so the stems don't poke thru. Not much ice build up and it easily comes off because it doesn't stick to the hay. We just put the plastic in the weekly garbage pickup. Three bale's wrap can stuff inside an empty Wind and Rain mineral bag. We figured $1.75 of wrap saves us about $8-10 worth of hay per bale.

what process do you use to wrap the bales? is it a stretch wrap plastic machine applied?

 

[WFfarm]

what process do you use to wrap the bales? is it a stretch wrap plastic machine applied?

Mounts on 3pt hitch, the spike and plate spin using hydraulics.