# Laziness



## Mr Mac (Oct 11, 2017)

There's a line between a shortcut and laziness. The lessee of our property ran cattle and fed them round bales. Apparently his normal operation was to just drop them without cutting the baling twine and now I have to contend with it!


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## pogobill (Jan 31, 2012)

That can't be good on any level?!?


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## bmaverick (Feb 20, 2014)

Mr Mac said:


> There's a line between a shortcut and laziness. The lessee of our property ran cattle and fed them round bales. Apparently his normal operation was to just drop them without cutting the baling twine and now I have to contend with it!
> 
> View attachment 82627


LA-ZZZZZZ-Y. Has my vote. and add ST-UUUUU-PID too. 

What is so stupid, cattle and cows can die of something called hardware disease, meaning they could of ate the baler twine and died a few hours to days later out in the field. Or even worse, the animal lives and needs surgery by a vet.


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## LouNY (Dec 15, 2016)

Hardware disease is an over used and abused term. Many feeder operations do not remove twine from bales.
Do I agree with their method, NO but I can see were they are coming from.

Feeding beefers that will be going to slaughter in 6 to 10 months working long hours and short handed,
when much of the hay is run through a hammer mill or shredded, stopping to remove the twine on every bale
will increase your feed preparation time by at least double. Time is money!!!!
When feeding round bales in a feeder bales that have been stored outdoors in the weather trying to remove the twine
wrap can and will be an exercise in frustration, if the bales have been stored inside out of the weather, and especially
if stacked like oil cans and NOT on there sides it is much easier and more practical to remove the twine.

Our round bales that are stored outside get net wrapped and then plastic wraped, we use a squeeze grapple to handle these bales,
set the bale down from the stack, get out of the tractor and cut the top like a pie and then down two sides, peel the plastic and wrap
down then get back in the tractor grab the bale lift it, get back out peel the plastic and net wrap the rest of the way off and stack it up.
Repeat this every day 8 to 10 times every day, regardless of the weather.

Hardware issues are normally caused by metallic objects that perforate one of the stomach linings or intestines.
The best protection for that is to feed a brood cow or dairy cow a cow magnet, that will stay in the stomach and bond to metal
to hold it and help prevent problems.
The most common hardware materials are nails, staples, and wire bits.


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## bmaverick (Feb 20, 2014)

LouNY said:


> Hardware disease is an over used and abused term. Many feeder operations do not remove twine from bales.
> Do I agree with their method, NO but I can see were they are coming from.
> 
> Feeding beefers that will be going to slaughter in 6 to 10 months working long hours and short handed,
> ...


WOW, for the 10 seconds it takes to remove round bale twine the cost jumps that much? I just hit the twine with my Leatherman Tool and just yank. Even on 3 year old round bales. Now, it takes a bit longer on those huge square bales because you got to walk around 50% of it to get it loose enough to yank.


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## LouNY (Dec 15, 2016)

bmaverick said:


> WOW, for the 10 seconds it takes to remove round bale twine the cost jumps that much? I just hit the twine with my Leatherman Tool and just yank. Even on 3 year old round bales. Now, it takes a bit longer on those huge square bales because you got to walk around 50% of it to get it loose enough to yank.


WoW 10 seconds you must be fast!!!!

Just to back it up a bit till you've worked in some one else's shoes for a considerable time, under the same conditions, don't be so judgemental,
it might just come back and bite some day.


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## NTSOG (Dec 13, 2021)

G'day,

Unwrapping round bales before feeding out may be messy and somewhat time consuming, but having seen the contents of the stomach of a heifer after she was butchered [she broke her leg], I'm quite prepared to make the effort to ensure no animal [sheep or cattle] can get to scrap bailer twine or wrapping on my property. The heifer ate a large amount of bailer twine _before_ we purchased her. Cattle are too valuable to leave twine and wrapping about and veterinary surgeons too expensive.

Jim


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## Mr Mac (Oct 11, 2017)

I have dropped more than a few bales of hay in my time, and I agree that the few seconds it takes to hop down and cut the Twine is well worth the time it takes later to unwrap it from any number of implements I can think of. 

In the Air Force we were constantly reminded of the fact that there is never enough time to do the job right the first time, but always enough time to go back and do it again the right way. 

My problem is that I have several pastures that I'll have to contend with this problem on.


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## bmaverick (Feb 20, 2014)

LouNY said:


> WoW 10 seconds you must be fast!!!!
> 
> Just to back it up a bit till you've worked in some one else's shoes for a considerable time, under the same conditions, don't be so judgemental,
> it might just come back and bite some day.


Its become a second nature reflex. Back up with the hay fork, stab a round bale, deliver it to the circle round bale feeder, tip it in, hop down, flip the Leatherman tool, rip and rip, yank and yank. Hop back up and go. Some people can rope a calf in less time I can cut the twine off and yank. 

I only do it once every few days. I don't have herds upon herds to deal with. 

Now it takes longer hay feeding the goats. It's sq bales and counting peeled off flakes, hand delivered to each feeder. ugh.


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## NTSOG (Dec 13, 2021)

*Mr Ma*c:_ 'In the Air Force we were constantly reminded of the fact that there is never enough time to do the job right the first time, but always enough time to go back and do it again the right way."_

While in the Air Force I suspect you also participated in FOD walks on and around the flight line so as to find and remove any foreign objects that could be sucked into aircraft engines. I see picking up any stray/dangerous materials that could be eaten by animals as a kind of farming 'FOD walk'.

Jim


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## ck3510hb (Sep 12, 2016)

Now that brings back memories. In basic back in 61 my flight was selected to clear "fod" from the runway, clubs, line up across the runway and drive the JackRabbits off LOL (I think it was Kelly Field then)


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## Mr Mac (Oct 11, 2017)

Yes, as a 462X0 (aircraft armament) we did our fair share of those. The worst one was at Castle AFB in '82 after one of our B52s crashed.


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## LouNY (Dec 15, 2016)

Almost every morning on the taxi ways and revetments at Bein Hoa air base if we had gotten any rockets or mortars the previous night USMC VMA-211.


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## Mr Mac (Oct 11, 2017)

God bless ya, Lou!


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## Just Wondering (Mar 25, 2018)

When we got our acreage 20+ years ago, the prior owner had used square bales for years.
No twine... wire was used.
There was a huge 4 foot ball of rusted wire before they stopped gathering it. It was in a ravine.
We proceeded to roll another 4 foot ball of rusted wire.
We removed 2 refrigerators, 3 washers, 1 dryer, 4 freezers (one with a door still attached -- not safe), couple of push mowers, one riding mower and probably 1,000 little brown beer bottles, and 24 dead auto tires, 2 dead (large) tractor tires.

I won't tell you how long I spent laying under the case loader/backhoe cutting hay bale wire away from the drive train. Apparently there was even more wire in the high weeds we were driving back and forth through to get all the dead appliances.

There was also the pile of hay bale netting from round bales, but it was more easily managed since it appears the PO piled it all in the one pile. It was about 2 foot tall but more spread out.

So, I'm in the camp of 'clean it up' so your future doesn't include mindless, muddy, dirty, bending, yanking, pulling trash to fill your 2 yard dumpster every freaking weekend for over a year.

JW


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## NTSOG (Dec 13, 2021)

G'day,

*Just Wondering*_: "So, I'm in the camp of 'clean it up' so your future doesn't include mindless, muddy, dirty, bending, yanking, pulling trash to fill your 2 yard dumpster every freaking weekend for over a year." _ Definitely!!!!

On the subject of general rubbish being dumped on farms, there is no way I would ever go swimming in an old farm down around where I live in Victoria, Australia. There is far too much risk of becoming snagged on old wire dumped out of sight in the water. Then there is all the old litter from broken bottles and porcelain buried in the mud, but also scattered around the paddocks. I never go barefoot lest I get cut. We live in a gold-mining area from the 1880s and the folks back then dumped their domestic rubbish wherever. Every time I plough I dig up fragments of glass and porcelain, the occasional old axe head, pieces of wrought iron or old 'smoothing' irons. I too have had the joy of lying under a slasher [bush hog] and unwinding and cutting old wire wrapped around the blades and shaft that was dumped years before by a fencing contractor too lazy to find a safe place for it. Some 30 years ago we bought an adjacent block of land from a young man with grand ambition and a grander thirst for beer. He used to camp out on the block with his equally thirsty mates and their breakfast always started with a beer. In fact all activity, even when they were using heavy machinery, involved beer. To this day I'm still finding 'dead' crushed beer cans in the dirt. I was delighted when this fool was caught for DUI by the local Police and lost his driving licence which resulted in him moving interstate and selling the block to us.

Jim


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## Tllc60 (Aug 16, 2013)

Exactly which tractor are we discussing here?


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## pogobill (Jan 31, 2012)

Tllc60 said:


> Exactly which tractor are we discussing here?


The Thread is called "Laziness", it's not about any tractor. The thread is about operating in an environment left behind by folks that are perceived as lazy or can't think far enough ahead to understand the consequences of their actions.


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## Longbow (Apr 28, 2016)

LouNY said:


> Hardware disease is an over used and abused term. Many feeder operations do not remove twine from bales.
> Do I agree with their method, NO but I can see were they are coming from.
> 
> Feeding beefers that will be going to slaughter in 6 to 10 months working long hours and short handed,
> ...


74 years old and somehow, I missed knowing about "cow magnets". Thought you were joking so I looked it up. They are real and apparently work. Cost is around $4 and the article said they stay in the stomach and do the job. I'm in total agreement to taking the time to clean up bale twine and other things that can cause pain and problems. We raise, kill, and eat cows, but there's no need for them to live in pain until that time comes. 
Veterinarian bills are expensive. Someone rightly said that no matter how high inflation goes, three things that people will always spend money on are animal (pet) care, women's cosmetics, and children's toys.


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