Baling wire, Back when we got a few wire bales w would have a pile to use from.

Now I have to buy it new! This roll was bought at auction. It's not the best for any job, bit will make a quick patch.

Going haywire!

At last! A reply that strictly pertains to the topic, and not the background junk!

I can remember when half the equipment on a farm was held together with baling wire. Haven't seen any new in years.

I love auctions.

Re bar tie wire is similar, and readily available

Used to have a big pile of baling wire in the scrap pile.

Just swing by and pick out as much as you need to fix fence, etc. But they pretty much quit using baling wire, and over the years that wire got worse and worse. Just rusted down in the pile.

I buy spools of galvanized wire now. Just throw the spool in and cut what I want from it.

Stronger and won't rust away.

Half a mile of that wire lasts me quite awhile.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/red-brand-galvanized-electric-fence-wire-14-gauge-2640-ft

I wish I had a nickel for every gate on the dairy that was tied shut with a double strand of baling wire


Panels tied to posts with wire to make a temporary pen that was still there years later.

I even brought a large bundle to school for the art teacher to make wire sculptures

Me too.

You can fix anything with balin' wire or duct tape

Yes Doc, Red Green ain't got nothin' on us old farmers,.

When we fed the cows, Dad had a specific way he wanted the baling wire cut, folded and wrapped, so it could easily be reused for whatever was needed. We had a huge stack of the stuff. That was 40 years ago and I still have some of those wires neatly folded and wrapped in my shop, and tool boxes.

Nowdays I usually grab one of the remnant rolls of SS wire they use to wrap phone cable on overhead lines. It's easier to work with than the baling wire, last longer, but it is not as strong.

Baler wire also made a servicable gas-welding rod......

That's exactly right!

You cut both wires near the twist, pulled them off the hay bale, then pulled both wires even, and folded them in half, then folded them like that two more times until it was about 8-9 inches long... then you took one end wire and went around the bundle a couple times. That held it all together until you needed it. Then it would all come apart easily.

If you didn't know how to cut, fold and wrap baling wire, you were a greenhorn!

Took awhile, but I found a pic of how to properly fold used baling wire...

I'd like to have a dollar for every one of those wire bundles I've made...

Duct tape is for people that have little or no talent. It will work, but a guy that has mastered haywire is nothing less than Michelangelo in repair artistry.

My father was one of those. We never went anywhere without several of those coils of wire under the seat. We built a horse manger using no nails or spikes with haywire. I learned from the best and even fixed a broken distributor with haywire...

I carry some wire when I travel. It could hold a muffler on for a while.

We didn't use much baling wire though there was always enough around to make temporary fixes. Mostly, we used small "square" bales which were held together with twine. Twine was used in place of wire on temporary repairs with many of those repairs lasting years.

By the time the farm was sold, most of the milking stantions were held together with twine. More than once a truly temporary repair of the belt for the suction motor was made with twine. It would last maybe long enough to milk one cow before a new belt needed to be made. Breaking that belt at night sucked as it meant two milkings using twine. Grandpa never bought a spare belt as he believed it would rot by the time we needed it. Maybe 30 years earlier when he "modernized" from hand milking that was true but by the 70s that wasn't nearly as much of a problem.

There's nothing better than old baling wire for when you are making snare clamps when trapping.

Just the right tension and hold..

I remember back in the mid to late 60's, baling wire was hard to find. Living south of Albuquerque, NM,we had to drive to Pueblo, Colorado and buy it off the dock of CF&I steel where they made it.That was a 800 mile round trip.

Yes Sir, that is diffently the way we did it!

I have jumped a dead pickup battery with baling wire before.

I would have to wear gloves to do that.

It is about all we use to patch fence these days. Local auctions used to have some but not much around anymore. I buy it at the local farm store every five years or so. Last time I used it was to fasten an electrical cord to a corral fence so I could get power to the stock tank heater after the underground line quit. It works well and the cows haven't torn it off yet.

I don’t believe I have ever seen a wire wrapped bale here.

You have not missed that much Mike. They were hard on hands.

We got wired bales when I had to live in Kansas. Tough to cut open with a knife!

same here on the twine, Dad put up red top cane in bundles (machine that cut and bundled) then we would stack in the field like teepees and haul in when needed or had time to stack behind the windbrake, my first memory of the stacking was Dad had a team of horses that pulled the hay wagon to the barn, some was put in the loft to feed the milk cows, we always had milk & crème for home use and butter to sell.