cleaning feathers - off the bird!

[JAK Rabbitry]

Well i'm sure we've all looked at our chickens at one point or another and said to ourselves '' How pretty!''
I had a bunch of 'excess' roosters butchered this year and though the meat was appreciated by all, I couldn't help but say to myself 'what a waste of pretty!"
So I bought some tools and hooks today and started experimenting with making jewlery from feathers.

I treated all my birds with spot on ivermectin and DE in the coops, so i'm confident no buggies are on any of my feathers.
However I'd like to try selling soem of my creations and i'm wondering if there's some official way to clean feathers that would leave buyers assured that they are clean. I mean as much as I love chickens, I wont lie, they can be filthy little critters.

I've heard of steaming feathers and that sounded doable...how exactly is that done? Can I just boil a pot of water and hing the feathers over the pot for a while? How long?

Is there perhaps another way someone can recommend?

If I actually boiled the feathers in water...would that screw them up and make them ugly? I suppose I could always experiment but...you could save me some time!

Any info or feedback is appreciated.

 

[Red&Yellow]

Hey, you took my idea.

I don't have any info for you, and I'm sorry. I was just planning on keeping the feathers the way they are. (or I hadn't thought of it yet

)

Either way, they look lovely.

 

[JAK Rabbitry]

Thats alright... do you think not doing anything with the feathers would be sanitary enough?

 

[they'reHISchickens]

Just curious, have you tried nuking the feathers in a microwave to sterilize? You might need to experiment to get them hot enough to sterilize and not cook them

 

[JAK Rabbitry]

I thought of that and like you said, also though I might end up damaging or drying out the feathers, making them brittle. Or just unleashing some unpleasant bacteria into the box that cooks food.