Hi! So happy to see you here!

Hi, my name is Kelli Knecht (I'm the one in the green hat and pink shirt) and I run a small business we like to call Feathered Knechtions (pronounced connections) and here's how we got started down the road to our passion project!

"Corona-pocalypse" was the time when many of us started to think more about our food source and supply chain. We live with my in-laws and up until this point they did not want chickens in the backyard. But once things became more uncertain the in-laws agreed to a few chickens to brighten the days and eventually and much later down the road give us eggs. So we did what a lot of others did and started with chickens but that was just the gateway that got us really thinking about what else we could do on 1/10th of an acre in city limits.

Then the Pinterest worm hole and constant research on how to have the most productive, healthy and happy chickens. During my Pinterest research one day, I came across an article about coturnix quail and several reasons why they were a great option for people in the city who were limited by space and city codes. I then posted in a local homesteading group asking if anyone knew about these quail and where I could learn more locally. We ended up finding a local breeder who invited us over and gave us a hands on lesson on how to process quail for meat (we I highly suggest you learn FIRST and on someone else's birds if at all possible-see our website www.featheredknechtions.com to sign up for our newsletter where we announce our upcoming class schedule). We took home the meat and eggs and tried both of them first before deciding we enjoyed the meat and eggs and also could stomach processing the birds for meat. After we discovered this we jumped in with both feet and purchased 50 coturnix quail chicks from that breeder!

We didn't intend on this being a business endeavor ever in fact we only planned on raising enough birds for our household of 6 to have meat and eggs....but then we had people start asking us if they could buy birds from us, buy meat and eggs and we even got asked to start hatching chicks for people. This is when Feathered Knechtions was born. We purchased an incubator to start hatching our eggs, started going to farmer's markets and down the road even started teaching classes and offering hands-on meat processing courses.

I'm so grateful that a neighbor agreed to teach us how to process these birds for meat and teach us all about them and we spend so much of our time paying that forward and doing the same.

Before 'corona-pocalypse' we would not have thought either of us city kids would be capable of processing an animal for meat (we've never even been hunting) but during difficult times you can really see the strengths you never knew you had.

I hope that you follow along with us as we 'city kiddos' learn to live more naturally and be more self-sufficient within the confines of city limits. Please remember during this that you are SO much more capable than you even know and that we are gonna do this TOGETHER. You are not alone in this journey.