Net wrap

[samm]

outrigger, i feel your pain, we were in your boat last year, people sellin stock off or selling out, there was just not enough rain to make any hay or grow any grass to graze em on. i hope ya'lls situation changes soon.

samm

 

[Jogeephus]

net wrap will hang or stick to everything

Yeah, I've known it to stick to the heel of a man's boot and make him fall face first off a tractor into cow mud in the dead of winter. Not a nice way to start the morning. I haven't cared for it since but that's just me.

 

[GMN]

How long will hay stay good when wrapped with a generous wrapping of net. Any one have any experiance with this. Thinking of maybe buying a baler with net wrap instead of building hay barns.

We just bought a used John Deere 535 baler, with net wrap. Already we see a big difference vs. string tied, it makes a real good quality bale. Cost was $200 for a roll of net wrap, will do, double wrap, about 190 round bales. We used it just for one field, only one left to bale, and we like it a whole lot.

Its true you can not beat a shed, we don't have a shed on our farm yet, we figured this would help out some at least, until we could afford a hay shed.

Gail

 

[spike]

I bought ssome hay that was 2yrs old. It was stored outside and had virtually no rot. It was right next to some baled this year and the only difference you could see is that it had faded a bit from the sun.

 

[George Monk]

I net wrap and string tie bales. I can store 168 bales under tarps and bale bonnets. Those I do in string because it costs $0.60/bale for string. The net wrap here is $210 for "end" wrap. I get about 150 bales per role. The net is better if you are going to store more than one year. If you take the time and place your strings about 3" apart there is very little difference in the FIRST year of storage. The real advantage of wrap come in the second year. (and the time advantage in the field)
One thing that I did find was the wrap is much WORSE on oats hay. For some reason (could be operator error) I have a lot of egg shaped oats/clover/alfalfa hay bales. I did the second field with string and they look great.

 

[cowtrek]

JD, you need to do a little research on this. I think you're a level headed fellow and you probably will.

Here's what I've found if your interested.

1) The cost of the net wrap material is about $300/roll (Vermeer and JD dealer - $289.00)
2) Cost of adding net wrap to the baler is about $4300.00 (Vermeer dealer)
3) Depending on the bale size and number of wraps of net, you will only be able to wrap about 100 bales (maximum) per roll of net
4) Doing the math, that adds a minumum of $3.00 to the cost of the bale.
5) Even the custom balers pass this additional cost ($3 to $10/bale) on to the buyer.

And here's an exerpt from one of the web sites presented above.

"Bale wrapping has some influence
on storage losses of large round bales
stored outside. A Missouri study
showed weathering losses increased as
the spacing between the twine on bales
increased from 2 to 8 inches. However,
wrapping bales with twine spaced
closely together increases costs because
more twine is used and more time is
required for wrapping.

Most studies have shown net wrap
to be slightly better than twine in
preventing storage losses. Producers
who use net wrap have also indicated
that they can wrap a bale with only two
to three revolutions and produce more
bales per hour than with twine. Net
wrap has the additional advantage of
stabilizing bales better than twine, thus
making bale handling and storage
easier, but it also increases cost."

Check this out for yourself, JD. There are folks here who have vested interests in selling you something that make it sound like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and may even promise you they can save you a bunch of money. But you will probably have to pick the equipment up in East Jesus, Maine.

The only thing that net wrap offers over twine wrap is speed and that is a biggey as far as I'm concerned. With my old equipment it takes more than a minute to tie the bale with twine. The same could be done in a few seconds with net wrap.

Have a good one.

Around here John Deere and Vermeer sell it from $195 to $220 per roll.

I suspected it could be bought cheaper but I didn't want to put something down in writing that was just guess work. The price of $289/roll was quoted from a Vermeer dealer in Sealy, Texas and the JD dealer in Shiner, Texas quoted over $300. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to pick a fight and I don't disagree with your numbers. Just stating what I found.

Have a good one.

I've done business with both those dealers and my suggestion would be to 'check around'. They aren't bad dealers but definitely not the cheapest around. You might want to check http://www.geneticseed.com as I know they sell twine and chemicals and stuff and I bet they sell netwrap too, all at some level of discount. Also check with the Deere dealer in East Bernard, Shoppa's. They own all the Deere stores around this part of the country (5 or 6) Good luck! OL JR

 

[grannysoo]

Net wrap is the only way to go when you're doing the baling. Clean, pretty, and much faster. String wrapping takes 70 seconds to tie off, net wrap does it in 8. Been using my JD467 baler for 3 years now, wrapping it with 2 wraps, and average 250 rolls per roll of net wrap (60 inch bales). My average cost per bale to netwrap is $1.25 per roll.

Every JD dealer in Georgia was out of "cover-edge" wrap until about 6 weeks ago. With no rain in the spring, everyone here baled all of the wheat they could get their hands on to keep the cows alive. Used all of the netwrap before the hay season even started.