Prices of feathers

[Farmerboy16]

I was at a farmer's market last week selling eggs, veggies, and my mom's baked goods with my sister. There was a lady next to us selling those now popular feather thingies that you put in women's hair, why do they what to do it anyway?

She was selling 1 feather for $5.00, $3.00 for 10, $15.00 for 6. Anyway I was looking at the scalped feathers on her table, and can tell what breed they were from, like Barred Rocks, etc. I told her that I have chickens, ducks, guineas, turkeys, geese and asked her if I could try selling some of my feathers to her, she asked if I could bring samples of what I have. So I took a sandwich bag of feathers to the market yesterday, she really like the guinea feather, and some others, and payed me $3.00 for the bag. She said that she would pay me $5.00 a sandwich bag of feathers of each kind of poultry that I have. Now my question is $5.00 a bag is too cheap? My mom thinks it is too cheap for my time. I do not know how much I can sell them for, and I want to make it profitable to help pay off of what I own to some people. Also what is the best way for me to take the feathers off the live birds, pluck here and there, or cut here on there on a bird, and what is the max that I can take from each bird? Thanks for any help on this.

 

[Elite Silkies]

I have a hair stylist that wants to purchase my silkie feathers, but I will not pull them out. Only if they fall out on their own. You should be able to collect quite a few bags during moulting.

I would say $5.00 a bag is a little cheap, considering she is going to sell 6 feathers for $15.00. Why don't you sell your own feathers like she is doing?

 

[Stacykins]

Yea, rooster neck and saddle feathers are a heck of a lot more valuable than that. Definitely too cheap for just your time.

 

[Farmerboy16]

How much can I sell the bag of feathers for?

 

[Urban Chaos]

How many feathers can you get in a bag? How many of those are "good" as in for her use as a hair accessory? From there I would say maybe .50 cents to $1 a feather. I looked on amazon.com and the micro-links (what connect the feather to your hair) are $4/20 so I would say she has a huge mark up. Also on Amazon (with out looking to far into it) I noticed that a pack of 4 4-8inch feathers is $17.00.


Raise your prices.

 

[Farmerboy16]

She said about 100 feathers a bag.

 

[Urban Chaos]

and are all 100 nice feathers that she can use for her project? The lowest I would go would be $25 for a bag of 100. What ever you decide on, ask for a little more so you can bargin down toward your rock bottom price. And stick to your guns!


OK, so I looked a bit on Etsy and they are priced anywhere from $2-4 PER FEATHER! now, understand most of these are between 5 and 8 inches long. So if you are getting feathers that long, then maybe you can even ask $1 a feather AT THE LOWEST.

Good luck - I hope I'm not giving you awful advice. Run this all by your mom and maybe have her there with you at the bargaining table.

 

[ChicksterJo]

I would agree that instead of being her supplier maybe you could try doing what she is doing. If you can find really nice feathers and charge per feather instead of per 100 in a bag (and she can resell them), you might end up making more selling them yourself.

I forgot to add - I would just wait for the feathers to naturally fall out. I'd imagine it would hurt the chicken if you're pulling out its feathers, and that's too big a price for the chicken to pay for its own feathers

 

[Elite Silkies]

There is no way I would collect 100 feathers for $5. Not when they are selling for the prices they are selling for. Your losing a lot of money that you could be making. If she selling 6 for $15 and you give her 100 feathers that are good quality, she is making $240 off the feathers you sold her for $5!

 

[Farmerboy16]

Thanks for all the wonderful advice that all of you have given me!

I will try at $25.00 for 100 chicken feathers (multiple breeds), $50.00 for 100 guinea feathers, $30.00 for 100 duck feathers (khaki Campbell), $25.00 for 50 Bourbon Red turkeys. Is this good pricing on all of them? I will let you know how it turns out on Thursday.

BTW, she said that she is going to use them for clippings.