DIY - Making a down comforter from duck feathers and down

[fnord]

Hi,
Thanks for the directions!

I've actually kind of perfected a kind of one-woman assembly-line technique with separating the pods, seeds and floss. I'll give the seeds to the Suzuki Foundation initiative, the pods go in the compost and I'm saving the floss.

However, I really need to know how much down/floss might be needed, either by weight or "packed" volume ... I could say I have enough floss for a decent pillow, but I've no idea about doing a quilt/duvet ...

And I wondered if anyone who's handled down (probably comparable in terms of fly-away-ness) might be able to offer suggestions for the actual stuffing operation, to keep the whole house from becoming infiltrated!

It's not a subject I've found resources for on the net! In fact, searching down led me to this forum!

TIA for any suggestions anyone might be able to offer!

<sigh> At least every couple of months still it crosses my mind to pick the phone up to call my mother, who passed on more than a decade ago. She was the go-to person for all manner of practical lifeskills.

<LOL> And she'd have known how many ducks or chickens or geese it'd take to make a pillow *or* a feather bed.

 

[napdognewfie]

Bet it's in the Foxfire books.

 

[napdognewfie]

And I'd do it outside!

 

[LadyIsadora]

And I'd do it outside!

Wise, very wise.

 

[archergolf]

Its a good informative and supportive site.
Terry waterproof Mattress Protector

 

[ToriHenning1234]

Soo... still a little confused on what my duckling Dusty will be. Any thoughts?

 

[neduckmomma504]

Maybe a rouen????

 

[JMCT]

If you're one to be iffy about the idea of raising ducks for meat...stop reading here. I do not want to offend anyone.

My husband and I decided to raise a flock of meat ducks this last summer, and I decided to use their down and feathers for a comforter. I wanted to make sure to get as much as we could from these ducks' lives.

To anyone who wanted to know if you could use feathers from ducks as down for comforters and such...yes, you can. How do you do it? Well, I could not find any online source that would give me the whole process, so I wrote down and photographed the process as much as I could for future reference. I used this information in my blog for a few weeks, but instead of directing you to endless frou frou about knitting, I've converted the whole thing to a pdf. file.

I've posted the pdf form to google docs:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzee85NJjrtbMXI5UGZCTGxBc0k/edit?usp=sharing

If you've got questions after reading that, ask me. We now have one duck down comforter and I will be making more. The one down comforter measuring 60" x 60" took the feathers + down of about 8 ducks. All in all, we butchered 26. And as you are all my witness, I will never. do. it. again. Next year, chickens.

-Brenda

Hi Brenda,
I am looking for someone to make me a comforter with the goose feathers I have from my grandma's polish comforter. It is ripped and the feathers are coming out. Is that something you can do? I have them in California.
Thank you,
Judith

 

[Polish Prince]

Hi Brenda,
I am looking for someone to make me a comforter with the goose feathers I have from my grandma's polish comforter. It is ripped and the feathers are coming out. Is that something you can do? I have them in California.
Thank you,
Judith

Judith, I inherited my grandmother's down comforter when she passed away in 1949. She had made it herself out of chicken feathers. She laboriously stripped the quills out of thousands of chicken feathers during the great depression. It was very heavy but there was enough loft to keep me warm during the coldest nights. My mother salvaged the "feathers" by making a new comforter sack out of heavy pillow ticking. I slept beneath that comforter until I married. As a wedding gift, my mother purchased more duck/goose down/feathers from a local poultry processing company and mixed them with the stripped chicken feathers to make a king sized comforter. You may consider making our own sack to contain your comforter's feathers. Just about every fabric store sells feather ticking or can get it. The sewing of the sack only requires simple straight stitches. As our children came into this world, my wife made each of them a comforter with new feathers we purchased locally. She set up her sewing machine next to our kitchen table and sewed the sacks using doubled over seams to make them feather proof. She left a two foot straight section unsewn to allow the feathers to be inserted. The new sack was taken out into our yard and the feathers transferred outdoors. To close up the comforter, she also set up her sewing machine outdoors and double stitched the the sack closed. You could use your old comforter sack as a pattern. Nothing beats sleeping beneath a feather/down comforter. Allen

 

[sebarn01]

@clmschke:
Sorry, I missed your video. They have taken it down. I would love to have seen how you put your quilt together.
I was looking on to see how many feathers it was going to take to make a nice duck feathered quilt. I have been picking up the feathers off the ground after the ducks do their molting and when they just flip their wings. I grab a bag and go out and start gathering them off the ground, out of their pool, and out of the coop. I usually will collect about 25 to 40 feathers a day. So, I have one gal size plastic bag full but not enough to make a pillow. I don't get all of them, cause my back starts to hurt and I have to stop. Been doing this for about a year now. Was wondering if I am supposed to use the large ones also? Do you cut off the tip of the feather? I have been collecting the feathers off the ground for about a year. I lost two ducks 2 years ago and I didn't think about saving their feathers for a quilt. The problem is I can't be the one to take the feathers off the ducks when they pass away, my ducks are pets. Thank you for the information you have supplied. So, after reading some of the other threads, I have found out how to wash the feathers. So, now all I got to do is find someone to boil and pluck the ducks when that time comes and sew me a bag so I can put my clean feathers in until I can get enough to make my quilt or/and pillows.