eating bale twine

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BeefmasterB":2y151h0r said:
novatech":2y151h0r said:
If mine find it some will chew it like cud. I find wads of it in the pasture where the have spet it out. The guy that had one of my pastures before never picked up any.
Don't know if it will hurt a cow but plays havoc on bearings on the shredder or any others it finds it's way into.

"spet"??????????????????????????

:shock:

Spet

Spet\, v. t. [AS. sp?tan. See Spit.] To spit; to throw out. [Obs.]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/spet


Sometimes you just never know.
 
I used to use a feeder that would hold seven round bales at a time. From the tractor you could convey them up and dump them into a hammermill (grinder). You would merrily go along creating a nice wind row of ground hay without ever getting out of the tractor. We left the strings on the bales. It was a selling point for the feeder. Manufacturer promoted it that way as a time saver and promised no problems. I didn't use it long enough to be sure myself.

We live near an ag experiment station. They have many cows that are cannulated (window into the cows rumen) so the professors can unzip and reach in at any time to see what the cows been eating. They routinely pull out big orange hairballs of bailing twine. They say the rumen will wad up the twine and it rarley gets passed out of the rumen as the twine ball does not get broken down small enough to pass into the reticulum. Over time the hairball just keep getting more twine added to it. In time it can consume quite a bit of space. One grad student has a big orange hairball all cleaned up and sitting on the bookshelf. I call it a hairball because it looks like a hairball a cat coughs up.

Today, we have a different feeder and we pull off all of the twine before processing.
 
RanchManager":1peq43tz said:
I used to use a feeder that would hold seven round bales at a time. From the tractor you could convey them up and dump them into a hammermill (grinder). You would merrily go along creating a nice wind row of ground hay without ever getting out of the tractor. We left the strings on the bales. It was a selling point for the feeder. Manufacturer promoted it that way as a time saver and promised no problems. I didn't use it long enough to be sure myself.

We live near an ag experiment station. They have many cows that are cannulated (window into the cows rumen) so the professors can unzip and reach in at any time to see what the cows been eating. They routinely pull out big orange hairballs of bailing twine. They say the rumen will wad up the twine and it rarley gets passed out of the rumen as the twine ball does not get broken down small enough to pass into the reticulum. Over time the hairball just keep getting more twine added to it. In time it can consume quite a bit of space. One grad student has a big orange hairball all cleaned up and sitting on the bookshelf. I call it a hairball because it looks like a hairball a cat coughs up.

Today, we have a different feeder and we pull off all of the twine before processing.

Good information RM!!! Common sense tells me it just can't be good for a cow to be consuming net wrap and bale twine but it's good to have some real information on what actually happens to it in the digestive system. Thanks!
 
How many of you actually take sisal twine off round bales? I don't, I have bought some hay with plastic on it and always take it off. It is awful on equipment.
 
Problems with getting clogged in mowers and other equipment, bowel issues with cattle, etc. etc. etc. Why would we not want to remove and dispose of twine properly? I've been lucky so far in over 20 yrs to have no problems but I remove mine from all round bales.

My neighbors had two farms that they lost cattle on and the vet confirmed that it was due to ingesting twine. I can only repeat what they were told, but it is enough to scare me and besides; the pastures look better with only cattle, forage, and plenty of cow pies on them with no string or other garbage. Not to mention that twine tangled in the cattle standing areas are tripping hazards for humans also. (I've seen this in my neighbor's pastures.)

Just good housekeeping measures I guess. And one more opinion.

HUS
 
Just incase anyone was wondering, here is a rumen canulated steer

Extension_273.JPG


out at uni. We mainly use them for in lab digestibility tests (extract some rumen fluids) or in vivo digestibility tests (feed is suspended in the rumen in a little bag for a certain time)
 
RanchManager":256bbfoj said:
I used to use a feeder that would hold seven round bales at a time. From the tractor you could convey them up and dump them into a hammermill (grinder). You would merrily go along creating a nice wind row of ground hay without ever getting out of the tractor. We left the strings on the bales. It was a selling point for the feeder. Manufacturer promoted it that way as a time saver and promised no problems. I didn't use it long enough to be sure myself.

We live near an ag experiment station. They have many cows that are cannulated (window into the cows rumen) so the professors can unzip and reach in at any time to see what the cows been eating. They routinely pull out big orange hairballs of bailing twine. They say the rumen will wad up the twine and it rarley gets passed out of the rumen as the twine ball does not get broken down small enough to pass into the reticulum. Over time the hairball just keep getting more twine added to it. In time it can consume quite a bit of space. One grad student has a big orange hairball all cleaned up and sitting on the bookshelf. I call it a hairball because it looks like a hairball a cat coughs up.

Today, we have a different feeder and we pull off all of the twine before processing.

Great post. Thanks. I take everything off I can now. I'm sure some stays out there though. I tarp hay and it can get pretty ratty to find the twine. From that respect, sisal is actually harder to get out of the bales than plastic . . . to remove AND to know you got it all.
 
angus9259":2ke8bn1s said:
sisal is actually harder to get out of the bales than plastic . . . to remove AND to know you got it all.
No reason to remove sisal. It's a totally degradable plant material
 
I haven't read this thread before but just wandered in tonight - and just about spet out my beer getting my underwear all dirty here in my parents garage! Great!

Also made me feel guilty - I remove netwrap religiously (if I can use the word "religious" sitting here in my tee shirt with a spet beer stain down the front!) but it is darn cold out tonight. I set a bale out for the calves and there was about a square foot of netwrap that was very frozen into the bale (bottom of a non sleeved bale). It was either fight that sq ft or lose some fingers.

I flipped the bale so it is on top in the cradle but reading this I'm going out with fresh warm fingers and a sharp knife and cut it out in the morning...
 
SRBeef":21wu3ke0 said:
I flipped the bale so it is on top in the cradle but reading this I'm going out with fresh warm fingers and a sharp knife and cut it out in the morning...

If your knife is sharp when you start, it won't be by the time you finish. The best way I have found to remove netwrap is to sit the bale up on its end and unwrap. Normally, it has only 2 wraps to remove. The netwrap and hay is haydes on knife/razor blades.
 
I beat mine with a baseball bat to break the ice first. Can get most of the ice off before cutting twine. I get every bit off before dropping it into feeder. My neighbor takes off the sisal, because he says it won't deteriorate, but can't figure out why the twine is gone when he picks the bale up off the ground. Leaves the plastic on and has the biggest mess in his yard you ever saw. I measured 1 wrap on a big bale and if I recall it was 18 ft around, but I might be a little off on measurement as memory is fleeing fast. So it would'nt take to much to make a good size gummed up ball that ain't gonna pass, or be "spet" out.
 
Good posts guys - I remove ALL twine, net, plastic - all that I find - SOMETIMES it's "hidden" inside. I have found "spet" out balls of plastic twine. Makes me sick to know they might have swollowed it.
As someone already pointed out - it is much more dangerous for calves, because they can & will get "plugged up" much faster.
Beating the bale with a bat - oh yes, been there, done that a lot - after ice storms. HATE IT. I usually pick up the bale with spear and than "mush" it down on the next bale, to break up some of the ice on top of next bale. Really saves on my arms.
 
Jeanne - Simme Valley":17ghstei said:
Good posts guys - I remove ALL twine, net, plastic - all that I find - SOMETIMES it's "hidden" inside. I have found "spet" out balls of plastic twine. Makes me sick to know they might have swollowed it.
As someone already pointed out - it is much more dangerous for calves, because they can & will get "plugged up" much faster.
Beating the bale with a bat - oh yes, been there, done that a lot - after ice storms. HATE IT. I usually pick up the bale with spear and than "mush" it down on the next bale, to break up some of the ice on top of next bale. Really saves on my arms.
That is why I went ahea and spent the money and built a few more hay barns
not having to fight the snow and ice on bales plus with the loss on the bales it doesn't take long to pay for a barn
if a barn last 20 yrs the cost of that barn is $1.18 per bale per yr on the size I built
 
90% of our hay each year is baleage - no spoilage. The few bales we get put up dry is net wrapped with a really good baler that makes a super tight bale. Cows eat all of it. I bet there's less than 1/2" of "spoiled" hay on top & sides (ends have no spoilage as we shove them up against each other).
But, if you are putting up lots of dry round bales, a barn probably is well worth it.
 
Another problem with left over twine is getting it caught in a rotary cutter or other equipment. Another reason I hate feeding hay.
 
The irony is, the only reason I began removing twine is to prevent ear tag loss until I read something about it from dun getting it stuck in their gut on this board. The irony: after a winter of removing twine, I've still lost as many ear tags and the twine I saw getting eaten was twine I had piled up on the ground waiting for me to walk around from the other side of the bale and pick it up! :mad:
 
Well I posted earlier that I have never removed sisal twine. I think that is a non-issue. If it weren't so expensive, I just might put molasses on it and feed it in the winter. ;-)
 
I found this forum because of a recent event. We slaughtered two cows last week, one weighed about a 60 more on the hoof than the other and was fat. After the slaughter the contents of the guts were left on my field and I spread it around with a harrow, picking up a large ball of plastic twine, probably 6-8". The next day I received the report on the hanging weight, the one that weighed more going in, hung about fifty pounds. The steer was obviously bloated and may have not been processing feed as well as he should. He was 21 months and hung at 612, the other was 656, both Holsteins.
We always try to keep the twine away, but they broke into the hay this year and ate about thirty bales before we realized what they were doing. Last year we slaughtered two (Holsteins steers) at 17 months and one hung at 580 and one at 604. Now I hope the twine does not effect the taste!
 
Can't imagine sisal twine being a problem. Suspect that the rumen bugs would eventually break it down.

I don't recommend letting cattle eat plastic twine or net wrap - and know some folks on here have had problems - and I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I've been doing necropsies on cows for 35 years and have never seen a cow/calf/goat that experienced any problems with it. Have seen some with wads of twine, rope, plastic bags, etc., but it was 'just there', not causing any problems, and totally unrelated to the ultimate cause of death.
 

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