Making a Down Comforter

[rainplace]

You may want to read this post from Omniskies posted early this year about live down harvesting.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=93376

 

[KOminifarm]

you can pluck your geeses every 7 weeks and not have to kill them they are in mult every 7 weeks my grandparents would take the geese every seven weeks and hold their head betweeen their legs and pluck the down and let them go.

 

[Omniskies]

I wouldn't live harvest over the winter, but live harvesting can be done without an issue. If you don't feel guilty about combing out a shedding cat or dog then it's hard to feel guilty about live harvesting from geese. I have an article on how to do it here: http://omniskies.com/down.shtml

Currently I've only made pillows out of our down - and I will never, ever go back to using other pillows ever again. I'm absolutely spoiled rotten on them. I also have a few extra bags of down (and bags of random goose or duck feathers from ones that were dressed out or died) that we are saving to make a quilt. I'd like to make one with needlepoint geese. I can draw, but I don't have the patience for needlepoint yet. So we're just saving up the down for now.

 

[mch0638]

I just completed my first goose down project. We slaughtered 4 adult geese and 3 adult ducks and saved the down and downy fine feathers, which filled 4 kitchen sized trash bags.

I feel that in the end it was barely enough down to make my crib-sized throw blanket (appx 40inx60in), as my blanket is not as lofty as I would have liked.... that being said, the baffles are about 2 1/2 inches thick, which ain't too shabby!