obscure Q about baling hay (lg squares)

[patandchickens]

I keep wondering this. I could wait til I talk to my hay guy next, i.e. prolly not til Aug or Sept, or I can figure that there's gotta be someone here who does their own hay or is familiar enough with doing large square bales to be able to cure my curiosity

These large squares (6-700 lbs) are mostly done with blue baler twine. However, here and there are sections of orange twine spliced in -- just like 2' long. I assume this has something to do with joining two rolls of the baler twine, but why have the orange spliced in, why not connect blue to blue *directly*?

I realize this is not earthshaking but everytime I open one of 'those' bales it drives me crazy, wondering

Thanks for any help,

Pat

 

[KellyHM]

All of ours has orange baling twine.

 

[patandchickens]

Yeah, all mine for the past 2 yrs has been all-orange, it's not the color as such, I am just curious about why the short sections spliced in?

Pat

 

[bheila]

We buy and sell hay for a living. My guess would be that they color code it for different strength twine. Our main farmer always uses orange twine and then we have another farmer who uses blue and his bales are much heavier.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

I'm just guessing that the baler probably uses twine from multiple spools to bind a bale. For whatever reason he just happened to have two different color spools installed when he did those bales.

 

[nightshade]

this is no help at all but what we buy has green twine

 

[Skyesrocket]

When they were baling they might have had a problem with the twine breaking. And were just taking it off of a different roll to splice it together to get it going again.
The balers have areas to store extra rolls of twine and instead of opening a new roll they might have been using what they already had opened.

 

[texasbartrambaby]

We also bale big squares for a living - but ours run in the 1200 lb range. We use the blue because it is a heavier gauge. My guess is like the one above. He uses the orange just to splice or when he had knotter trouble is my guess. Sometimes the knotter skips and the twine breaks. Just my two cents!

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
This is my answer, too.

 

[Samarai Jenn]

Quote:
This is my answer, too.

My answer also. When Sam bales the hay, its usually orange twine, but every once and a while he ends up getting blue twine. Its just run out, and thats where the next color comes up.