'Orange String' No longer Hemp - it's PLASTIC!

[Kelly Marks]

Hence it is not suitable to rely on to break if a horse pulls back!

My sister 'rescued' a horse yesterday when she visited a yard and saw him on a horse walker rear up and get his leg over the rope - the orange string didn't break and luckily she had a knife on her to cut him loose.

In the old days orange string was hemp but now it's plastic. Someone will know on here when the change over occured - 30 years ago?! And the different tensile strengths?

[specialsparkle3]

It probably is at least around 30 years Kelly. I used to plait 3 strands together and hold the ends in a flame to fuse them together without having a huge knot to re string my haynets ,at least that long ago I would think.

Old Sybil College of the Oakley Stud where I worked in the early 80's used to expect us to make haynets using orange baler twine. They were really strong, but very boring to make LOL The term "cheapskate" comes to mind

[Kelly Marks]

And you were 5 years old when you were making these haynets SS?

[Deleted]

Plastic string comes in different breaking strengths though. Ours manage to break the thin twine that comes off our small bales pretty easily but the stuff you get on big bales is much much stronger. I hired a trailer once that had that really thick string for tieing up to, I pulled it apart and tied him to a couple of thin wisps of it. You can always fray a bit of it with a knife or scissors for tieing up to.

[Ally S]

Or you could really push the boat out and buy one of those fab tying up loop thingys that are designed to give!!

[sharonh]

I did push the boat out and invest in a couple after Henry broke his headcollar, the lead rope and the feed shed in one fell swoop but left the piece of string intact!!

[specialized]

The orange string in my experience is the thickest string used on the big straw bales and you could hang a horse up with that before it broke. The yellow string that is usually on small bales is similar in strength to the old hemp string which has not been totally phased out as some of the older balers cannot use plastic string. I have still not found an alternative safety loop device that I am happy with - most of them give with a shake of the head and the horse quickly works out it is easy to escape.

[mandal]

Here it's mostly blue string of various thicknesses, occasionally orange. Round bales are generally net but I got a load recently that were bound with blue string, they were a pain to undo I can tell you.

[Furiey]

I was making haynets with it and heat sealing the ends back in the 70s. My father got his go-kart through scruteneering with something tied on with bailer twine. When questioned he seperated off one of the thin bits and challenged the scruteneer to break it by hand. When he failed to break it he passed the kart to race. We always seperate a bit off rather than use a whole string.

[BJMM]

We have both the thicker and thinner string and used the thinner stuff on our tie rings. Jasmine pulled back one day and actually snapped the metal clip on her leadrope because the string was intact.
Wasn't there a horror story (can't remember if it was on here or H&H)about a horse pulling out a fence post while attached via orange string? The horse then galloped around with a pole around it's legs, sustaining some horrible injuries.

[specialsparkle3]

Jan 14, 2013 16:24:58 GMT 1 Kelly Marks said:

And you were 5 years old when you were making these haynets SS?

Yep, that's right Kelly and by the looks of it, Furiey was even younger LOL

[calekio]

The older string on small bales i find will break just about... but actually have used string of small bales... just tied two lots together... one end on my friends car... other end on my horse lorry... to pull the horse lorry out of the mud... the orange string didn't break under that pressure it will never break!!!! lol

[mandal]

Just thinking and realized I haven't tied any of mine up for yonks. One advantage of being at home I suppose but I had better get some practice in, you never know what's round the corner.

[dillyday]

I tried the alternative loops -they sound great but my pony just waited until I moved out of grabbing distance then pulled back and walked off-lots of times -they actually taught him pulling back was worthwhile. I tend to use frayed orange from small bales but my knot tying isn't great so if they pull back hard it gives

[shan]

Yeah it's tough stuff isn't it? We had it on last year's bales and I used to cut the string half way through so it could be broken if Ginge pulled hard.