The Walkabout Mother Bin used in Rice Farming
A father’s view of his son’s purchase of a Walkabout Mother Bin to use with his rice farming machinery goes from “the dumbest thing he ever bought” to “the smartest.”
Halley Moor, Sr. is a farmer in Texas and the father of Halley Moor, Jr., a rice farmer in Southeast, Texas and a Walkabout Mother Bin owner since 2022*. You may remember Junior from our RFD-TV show in February last year. Recently, Crystal Kopecky, Director of Sales for Walkabout Mother Bins, happened upon a wonderful interview with Halley Moor, Sr., written in October 2023 in the Bluebonnet News about the Moor family, starting with the birth of Senior’s great-great-grandfather in 1787.
If you read enough of the Bluebonnet article, you’ll realize Senior has seen it all when it comes to farming practices and rice farming machinery: from riding horses to driving four-wheelers, from planting rice by drilling to using aerial planting, changes in chemical application to his son’s purchase of a Walkabout Mother Bin. He has farmed old school and new school and gave a very welcome and unsolicited review of the Mother Bin within the Bluebonnet article. We are posting it here, with permission from Chambers County Museum at Wallisville and the Bluebonnet News.
The WMB as Rice Farming Machinery
“Junior bought a Walkabout Mother Bin for his rice farming, and I thought that was the dumbest thing he ever bought on the farm. But when it came time to harvest, and they set it up in the field I realized it was the smartest thing he ever bought. We were running six or seven combines and we needed those carts to get back to the combines to keep them going. The carts came on one side of it and the trucks on the other. The trucks are able to load from the Mother Bin at the same time the carts are dumping. The auger at the Mother Bin was so big the cart could dump in 3 or 4 minutes and be back in the field. Prior to the Mother Bin, they’d have to pull up to the trucks and slowly dribble the rice out, always having to pull up to finish dumping. We hardly ever wait on carts now, where in prior times we might have waited 3 or 4 hours on them. I think the Mother Bin will hold three** truckloads of rice. I don’t know what it costs, but for someone farming a lot of acreage it is a very helpful tool,” assessed Halley.
If you enjoy reading stories about multi generational farming families and how they farmed “back in the day,” do yourself a favor and read this wonderful article (linked below).
The Age: The Moors of Hankamer
By Marie Hughes, Chambers County Museum at Wallisville and published in the Bluebonnet News, October 9, 2023
*Junior purchased his Walkabout Mother Bin from authorized Walkabout Mother Bin Dealer John Deere Shoppas, El Campo, TX. Find a dealer in your area here.
**The 4000+ Eastern Gray will hold 4-6 semi loads of grain. The new 6000+ Big Red will hold 6-8 semi loads of grain.
