Feeding Netwrapped Bales

I was looking around on the internet at different styles of hay feeders and noticed some pictures of netwrapped bales in the feeders. I was curious as to what everybody does. Cut the wrap off or feed the bale wrapped?

We have a basket feeder and take the net wrap off. We have had cows choke on twine and net wrap before.
If you google image 'hay saver feeder' the one that we have is the first picture listed. It is an excellent choice of feeder and we save lots of hay using it.

Always cut the netting off. Or string.

I always cut the wrap off but it seems like no matter where I stand the wind blows the hay right at me. Curse it every time.

I saw a deal the other day where round bale set on end.......wrap was cut off about half way up.......and calves were eating it. The bottom half acting as kind of a feeder. I'm sure there was waste though.

aj said:

I saw a deal the other day where round bale set on end.......wrap was cut off about half way up.......and calves were eating it. The bottom half acting as kind of a feeder. I'm sure there was waste though.

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I have been feeding my cows by sitting net wrap bales on end and I cut the net just over 1/2 way up and leave all the net wrap on the bales. I am certain there is less waste than with any hay feeder I have ever used. I have also tried just sitting the bales on their side and letting the cows eat from the ends of the bales. Both ways work very good. I had two friends who run several hundred cows each, tell me to try feeding like this.  I asked them if they had to remove the net wrap before they put the bales in the bale processor, and they both told me to just sit the bales out and let the cows eat at them.  I was concerned the cows would lose a bunch of ear tags but so far, I have not seen any lost.... yet. One of  the friends has been feeding 400 cows like this for about 6 years and says he will never buy another hay feeder. It may be different in warmer climates where you have mud for several months through the winter. Our ground stays frozen for most of the winter. All that is left the day after the cows have eaten the bale is a small ball of net wrap which I make sure is picked up every day. It is really quite amazing how clean they eat the hay up and even clean it off the net wrap that is left. In very cold weather I usually put more bales out than the cows will eat so they have feed available at all times, and I am really impressed with how little waste there is. I have my bred heifers and first calvers separate and am using hay feeders to feed them, and they are wasting far more than the main cow herd that is eating at the net wrap bales. I am thinking of removing the feeders and feeding the younger females the same way. I would not have believed it if I had not tried it... and it sure makes feeding hay much easier.

JIT - are you leaving the net wrap on the top half or bottom half of the bale?

HGC said:

JIT - are you leaving the net wrap on the top half or bottom half of the bale?

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If I sit the bale on end, I just slice the net wrap about half way on the bale and I leave all the net wrap on. It seems that is all the cows need to get at the hay. Like I said I was concerned about cows losing tags and getting net wrap tangled on their feet and legs but I have had no issues yet. And this may not be an option if you are dealing with mud as well.

I guess my concern has always been them getting that wrap stuck in their throat or in their gut somehow.  Is this not an issue?

To each their own, but we cut the net wrap off and get it out and away from the cattle.

I didn't used to care until I caught one of our show steers walking around one morning chewing on a wad of mesh.  I started pulling on it only to find out that he had about 2 feet of it down his throat.

That was the end of that.

I live where we have mud, I tried it once and i don't recommend it if u live where the around doesn't stay froze. Right now I envy people how have frozen ground all winter

That netting is intentionally made to dissolve very easy.  I'm lazy about it and dont cut it off for coes

We always cut it off or just unwrap it.  Mainly because if we don't take it off, it gets stomped in the mud or ends up and we don't always get it picked up later.  The wrap will last forever on the ground, and it's a real pain finding some with the mower the next year. 

Chambero are you saying it dissolves quickly if the cows eat it or are you using a different kind of net wrap. Ours is plastic.

Is all common sense lost?? The photo is for demo purposes.  Yes, take off the net wrap, or twine or wire.

I thought the obvious answer was no way but I see I was wrong.

We process so of course the net wrap comes off for that.  We take the wrap off the few bales we put out for odd groups too.  Our experience is it gets tangled in everything, stomped into the ground, and the cows can choke.  I am not sure what kind of wrap dissolves because I think ours would still be here in 10 years if we left it.  We were given some old, old net wrapped hay that we used for bedding a few years ago and that wrap was still strong.

Learn something new everyday!

Glenstory said:

Is all common sense lost?? The photo is for demo purposes.  Yes, take off the net wrap, or twine or wire.

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The photos that I seen clearly showed cattle eating the bales with wrap on them.

If we're feeding a big enough group of cows that they'll clean it up by the next day, we take the wrap off and unroll the bale.  Smaller groups of cows we set on the end, and cut the wrap off the top half of the bale.  Pick up the rest of the net wrap when we set the next bale out - it's never been a problem. 

Show calves, or pretty much anything else in the pens get all the wrap off and the hay in a feeder.  Except bigger bulls, we feed them like the smaller groups of cows as well - if they've got a feeder, they'll end up getting bored and tearing it up anyway. 

I'm not a hay baling expert, but whatever the guys use we buy from (and there are more than one) deteriorates pretty badly after more than two years when the bales are left in storage outside.

I thought the fact that this type of bale netting replaced twine for the very fact that it could be left on the bales as opposed to older methods?  The stuff dissolves very rapidly in stomach acid, much quicker than exposure to rain and sun.

Has anyone personally actually ever had a cow or calf choke on it?

We don't feed much hay at all - approx.  100 round bales per year for a 250 cow operation.  Most of that is fed to bred heifers when we bring them to town.  We have rings for them and I do cut the netting off for them.  And I certainly cut it off for show steers.  But the few we feed to mature cows out in the pastures I usually don't bother.

I never ever have left twine on a bale when it is fed so I was pretty skeptical about leaving the net wrap on bales when I fed them. I was at a function tonight where there were several cattle producers and I asked several people if they left the net wrap on bales when they fed them. By far the large majority of people who fed net wrap bales said they don't take it off any more. I was a bit surprised. In regards to net wrap lasting on bales, I am presently trying to use up some alfalfa that was baled 6 years ago and the net wrap is good yet and the bales are perfectly round yet. I think the net wrap helped run the water off them as within 1 inch of the surface these bales are just like when they were baled. I had a neighbor give me 300 bales of this stuff and it was sitting in a field 1 mile from my farm. He told me he was going to burn the bales if I did not take them so I decided to take them and use them to bed the cows if need be. I also have a few hundred bales that are twine tied that are 5-8 years old and they are not as good as the net wrap bales.

We feed about 800 bales a year of hay and 400 of straw that are all net wrapped. Chambero, I had not realized one of the reasons it was developed was to allow for easier feeding by leaving it on but I do know it shed water much better than twine when left outside and makes a tighter bale allowing for easier storage inside.
We always take it off because as some have already said it gets tangled in everything from eartags to hooves and mud but we find the worst is when it tangles in the beaters of the manure spreader. Our manure is always aged but the net wrap is still there.