Homesteading Adventures with Feathered Knechtions - An Urban Journey

Hello, I'm Kelli Knecht. I operate a small business we call Feathered Knechtions (pronounced connections), and I wanted to do a quick introduction of myself and let you know what I'm all about over here in my neck of the woods (central Utah).

We live in a very urban setting on maybe 1/10th an acre in a city that has a lot of ordinances and regulations.

During the "Corona-pocalypse," many of us started to reconsider our food sources and supply chains. We live with my in-laws, who initially were not keen on having chickens in the backyard. However, as uncertainty grew, they agreed to keep a few chickens to brighten our days and eventually provide us with eggs. Like many others, we started with chickens, which sparked our curiosity about what else we could achieve on just 1/10th of an acre within city limits.

This led to a deep dive into Pinterest and extensive research on maintaining productive, healthy, and happy chickens. One day, while browsing Pinterest, I stumbled upon an article about Coturnix quail, highlighting several reasons why they are an excellent choice for city dwellers limited by space and city regulations. I posted in a local homesteading group to learn more about these quail and found a local breeder who offered us a hands-on lesson in processing quail for meat (I highly recommend learning that FIRST- and on someone else's birds) if possible. We took home the meat and eggs, tried them both, and decided we enjoyed them and were comfortable processing the birds for meat. This discovery led us to purchase 50 Coturnix quail chicks from that breeder!

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From Left: Aaron Guidroz (Guidroz Family Farm), Brent (Zero G Quail Farms), and Me all hanging out at the Gulf Coast Homesteading Convention.

Initially, we never intended this to become a business venture; our goal was simply to raise enough birds to supply meat and eggs for our family of six. However, as people began asking if they could buy birds, meat, and eggs from us (even requested us to hatch chicks for them) Feathered Knechtions was born. We bought an incubator to start hatching our eggs, began attending farmer's markets, and eventually started teaching classes and offering hands-on meat processing courses.

I'm incredibly grateful to our neighbor who taught us how to process these birds for meat and shared their knowledge with us. We now dedicate much of our time to passing on that knowledge and doing the same for others.

Before the 'Corona-pocalypse,' we never imagined that we, as city kids, could process an animal for meat (we've never even been hunting), but challenging times reveal strengths you never knew you had.

I hope you'll join us as we 'city kiddos' learn to live more naturally and become more self-sufficient within city limits.

Remember, you are far more capable than you realize, and we are going to do this TOGETHER. You are not alone on this journey.

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Something else to add about me is I'm the lighthearted silly one of the group of bloggers. If there's a will there's a way and I show up every day to show that you can accomplish many things even if you are anchored to the city. So happy to be here and I can't wait to learn more and share what I know with everybody and have a blast while doing it!

With love

Kelli

*For more of my non-blogging shenanigans you can find me on the YouTubes at Feathered Knechtions Homestead - YouTube or over at my website at featheredknechtions.com