Welker Farms Review: Montana Family Farming on a Big Stage (Clean Score 95)

Best for: Families who love big iron, farm kids, equipment restorers, anyone who wants cinematic ag content without talk-show politics.

Age guidance: All ages for the harvest/time-lapse style films. Heavy machinery is real — good chance to talk safety with kids. Faith language appears on the farm’s own site (“Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”); that is the family’s stated identity, not partisan commentary.

Channel: youtube.com/@WelkerFarms. ~637K subscribers, ~1,114 videos (Social Blade / vidIQ, early–mid Oct 2026). Channel created June 29, 2011.

What the channel is

Correction: Welker Farms is in north-central Montana (Shelby area), not North Dakota.

Per welkerfarmsinc.com and Montana Ag Network coverage: the homestead dates to 1912; third-generation farmer Bob Welker and sons Nick and Scott run the operation. They farm on the order of 10,000 acres of spring wheat, winter wheat, yellow peas, and (per the current site) garbanzo beans. The YouTube channel took off after Nick’s centennial film; KTVH reported the early “100 Years of Montana Farming” video drawing large view counts and the channel’s feature placements (National Geographic Channel, RFD-TV, Progressive Farmer, and others).

The channel is known for cinematic planting/spraying/harvest edits, GoPro-era equipment footage, and long Big Bud tractor restoration projects (the farm says it owns and operates three Big Bud tractors, plus a custom “BIG BRUTE” sprayer styled after a Series 3).

What we checked

On October 15, 2026, we reviewed the official farm site, contemporary ag-press profiles, Social Blade stats, and the YouTube description/metadata for the signature centennial film. We did not pull full spoken captions from five recent talking-head episodes; language scoring is therefore slightly conservative.

Primary sample:

1. 100 Years of Montana Farming! - Big Bud Tractors — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMFRDekIjTA
   Description (creator): filmed seeding, spraying, and harvest over months for the 100-year dedication; music scored by Brian Ward; equipment notes include Case 2188 combines and Big Bud tractors; early GoPro Hero/Hero 2 filming.

Also confirmed by title/secondary pages (not full transcript pull):

2. BIG BUD Tractor Restoration - 2019 Time-Lapse — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krmcq0A_DUU (restoration of a 1979 Big Bud 525/50 path toward 600/50, per farming-content writeups)
3. Ongoing Big Bud restoration playlist parts (farmingcontent / YouTube playlist references)

Language (24/25). The centennial film is music-led documentary footage rather than shop-rant narration. Official site tone is faith, family, farming, fabricating, filming. We found no reports of heavy profanity as a channel hallmark. One point held back until a five-video caption pass on recent spoken uploads.

Violence & mature themes (14/15). No gore or crude humor in materials reviewed. Farming with large equipment is inherently hazardous; time-lapses still show real fieldwork. Slight deduction for “dangerous workplace on camera,” same logic as other farm channels — not a content-warning channel, but not a cartoon either.

Political/divisive content (20/20). Profiles and the signature film focus on family legacy, crops, and equipment. No partisan programming found in sources reviewed. Faith statements on the website are religious identity, scored separately from politics under our rubric.

Sponsorship honesty (14/15). Early videos highlight tools used (e.g. GoPro, editors) in descriptions. Long-running farm channels often mix merch and equipment brands; we did not audit every description for #ad labels, so one point reserved. Nothing deceptive turned up in the pages we opened.

Production value & usefulness (14/15). Genuinely high production for ag YouTube: aerial/cinematic harvest cuts, multi-month projects, restoration documentation useful to equipment fans. Not a how-to agronomy lecture channel like some explainers — more “show the year” than “teach soybean populations.”

Titles/thumbnails (9/10). Generally match the footage (harvest, restoration, Big Bud). Occasional excitement punctuation in later titles is normal YouTube packaging, not bait about fake disasters.

Why it’s worth your time

Where Millennial Farmer is a talk-along season diary from Minnesota, Welker Farms is the widescreen cousin: Montana scale, legacy machines, and a family that treats filming as part of the farm’s public face. For Clean Screen Guide’s farming category it diversifies geography and tone without dragging viewers into politics.

Start with these videos

1. 100 Years of Montana Farming! - Big Bud Tractors (2012–2013 era centennial film; chapters for seeding, spraying, harvest in the description). Best “who are these people?” watch.
2. BIG BUD Tractor Restoration - 2019 Time-Lapse (Nov 2019). Satisfying shop/paint/assembly payoff for equipment fans.
3. Browse recent harvest uploads on youtube.com/@WelkerFarms for the current season (exact titles change yearly).

If you like this, try

• Millennial Farmer: Minnesota row-crop season diary (scored).
• How Farms Work: educational farm explainers. (Not yet scored.)
• Just a Farmer: calmer everyday farm work. (Not yet scored.)

FAQ

Where is Welker Farms? North-central Montana near Shelby, per the farm’s site and Montana Ag Network. Homestead since 1912.

Who is on the channel? Bob Welker and sons Nick and Scott, third-generation operators of Welker Farms Inc.

Is it okay for kids? Yes for most families, especially the music-driven harvest films. Expect loud machinery and real farm hazards on screen — good conversation material, not cartoon danger.

How big is the channel? Roughly 637K subscribers and about 1.1K videos per Social Blade / vidIQ around Oct 1–15, 2026.

Sample basis (Oct 15, 2026): official site, KTVH/farmfocused profiles, Social Blade, YouTube description for xMFRDekIjTA, secondary confirmation of krmcq0A_DUU. Caption sampling for this channel was lighter than in our other farm reviews.