Baling Wire

37chief · Dec 17, 2013

Does anyone still use wire to bail their hay? Wire is all Dad used when he raised hay. He started out with long single pieces for the hand tie baler, then burrowed the neighbors New Holland auto tie wire baler. He stopped raising hay in the early 60's. Stan

Russ from MN · Dec 17, 2013

My Dad switched to twine about 1956, he said small pieces of wire ended up in the hay, causing hardware disease in the cattle. I can just barely remember the clumps of used wire hanging on the fence posts!

Murray2 · Dec 17, 2013

Most everyone can remember all the repairs that were completed with the use of "HAY WIRE". Cheers, Murray

old popper · Dec 17, 2013

My Dad bought 300 bales of red clover hay tied with wire around 1960 or 61. That is dirty hay to handle, but the upside was we had wire around there for nearly 30 years.

Hayfarmer · Dec 17, 2013

My uncle had a chicken farm next to me. I don't think he could have run any of his stuff without the used baling wire fixes. There are still some wire balers in my area, mostly old ones that guys use a small amount so can't afford to upgrade.

Case Nutty 1660 · Dec 17, 2013

my neighbor still uses his NH 283 wire tie we sold him new in 1975, its always shedded and still looks new he puts up 10-15 thousand bales a year wit it every year about a 1/3 of what he used to do since he sold down on Cows
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Bobl1958 · Dec 17, 2013

I still have a JD 336 Wire Baler. Great machine for what I use it for. Plus, I can keep everything else on the farm running with the wire after I cut a bale open. Bob

Tx Jim · Dec 17, 2013

All I've ever owned is a wire sq baler.I now own a JD 347. In my area there were were very few twine balers sold. There are a few more sold now than 30 yrs ago.

Mike M · Dec 17, 2013

My uncle used to do the straw bales with wire. It would hold together for long storage as the rats would not cut them open like twine. He still has the baler.

Wheat Farmer · Dec 17, 2013

Hay from the feed store is still wire tie, comes out of the Westcliffe CO area. I enjoy the repairing items. Great for gas welding.

JayinNY · Dec 17, 2013

I never baled with wire, but a farm I worked at raising foals would get tractor trailer loads of straw delivered for foaling season. I had to start carrying a cheap pair of cutting pliers to to open the bales, as we switched from shavings to the straw. Nothing more annoying than 10 other kids asking to use your pliers to cut the wire so they could bed back there stalls! Some would use the pitchfork tine to keep twisting the wire until it broke.

DaninKansas · Dec 17, 2013

I bought an old IH 47 baler that is wire tie - works very good except you just can't feed the hay into it too fast. I'm just trying to remember but I think the wire runs about .12 a bale for me.

RayP(MI) · Dec 17, 2013

Friend of ours has a JD 24WS. We use it at the BLANCHARD STEAM SHOW to bale up the straw from the threshing demonstration. He can make far better bales with that with the wire tie than I can with my NH 268 Hayliner. Wire is hard to come up with, unless you order it specially. Very expensive too!

RalphWD45 · Dec 17, 2013

I really miss bale wire, for the uses around the place. I was at the auction down at Chehalis last year, and bought a box of junk, because there was a roll of bale wire in the bottom. I brought it home, and dropped it in a bucket, and have almost got it used up.

DaninKansas · Dec 17, 2013

Local CaseIH/NewHolland dealer has a pallet of wire sitting in the middle of his "showroom floor" during hay season.

I don't buy it at Tractor Supply or Orschelns - they tend to store theirs outside and that stuff rusts real easy. The antiques I run don't need the extra burden of making rusty wire work.

RayP(MI) · Dec 17, 2013

Some of the older balers cut a short piece of wire off in the tieing process like twine balers do. Later designs eliminated that. Cows in particular are susceptible to hardware disease by ingesting small pieces of metal which settle into the bottom of the stomach, and then work their way to the heart. Some farmers have routinely given every animal a "cow magnet" orally to collect and hold the small metal pieces.

Tx Jim · Dec 17, 2013

Another thing about today's rolls of baling wire is the manufacturers "skimp on the amount of oil" applied in the process. I always open the tops of the boxes and pour on oil to ease tying problems.

KIP in MX · Dec 17, 2013

In the southeast New Mexico Pecos Valley, all the balers used to be wire tie and most of the wire came from CF&I in Pueblo, CO. Sometime in the early '70s, there was a labor strike there that shut down production and we took a truck to Pueblo to buy as much as we could carry back for us and neighbors and when that ran out, we had to buy imported wire which was 14 gauge, instead of the standard 14.5 gauge wire. Those old New Holland"s sure gave us fits with the smaller wire!
We baled 400 acres of irrigated alfalfa and a bit of oats and barley.

ShadetreeRet · Dec 17, 2013

Yeah, ever since they stopped using wire to tie bales with, it sure has been hard keeping all my Fords tied together!

BALING WIRE: PREHISTORIC DUCT TAPE!

Mike (WA) · Dec 18, 2013

Hadn't thought of that in years- we fed wire alfalfa bales when I was a kid- twisted the wire with a hay hook to break open the bale.

I miss having the wire around the place to fix stuff, and for welding rod.

Baling Wire

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