By Richard Purdin
January is in the books and February has arrived. The beginning of February brings two things to my mind, first winter is halfway complete (I hope) and will that durn ground hog better not see his shadow! As I write this article there is officially 48 days, 14 hours, and 54 minutes until spring but who’s counting. One thing is for certain January was a halfway normal January for southern Ohio with wild weather swings and weather fronts bringing just about every type of weather you can think of. From rains, ice, sleet, and snow, we had it all. Through all this I was still able to keep livestock alive, but it was anything but easy. About 60% of my hay is made in large round bales and out of that 60% about 80% is stored outside and 100% of those round bales are net wrapped. In the last 20 years many producers have switched from sisal or plastic twine to woven net wrap to preserve and hold large round bales together. While it does present an increase cost in baling dry hay, it has much value in its ability to preserve dry hay stored outside, allowing for better water shedding and tighter/ denser bales. Most commonly producers will remove the net wrap or twine before setting the bale out to feed or grinding in a TMR mixer. Some producers will choose to leave the twine or net wrap on the bale and let the livestock eat around it, later picking up the net wrap afterword’s. The reason for doing this could be due to time constraints, older producer challenge with removing the net wrap, and frozen to the bale. These are all valid reasons but at the end of the day this presents a major risk to your livestock’s health. Livestock can accidentally ingest the net wrap.
Remove ALL the woven net wrap on frozen corn stalk bales