What to do with feathers?

[Richard Pryor]

Did a quick search and nothing came up. I have around 50 chickens. They haven't molted yet, but there are a lot of feathers around my yard! They get stuck in branches/weeds/etc and they're kind of all over the place.

I realize I have a lot of chickens so some may not relate. I don't even want to imagine what's it like when they molt!

Besides picking them up one by one, is there anything you guys do to keep your yard clean? Or does it come with the territory of owning chickens?

 

[SunHwaKwon]

The area around my run was like that for a while... chicks molting feathers, adults going through regular molts, some being pulled out by the roosters trying to mate and so on. They were everywhere and it drove me nuts. Most will rake up okay, and I took to make a mini piles of them and then burning them with the grill lighter lol It seemed every time I tried to pick them up the wind would pick up and blow them all over the place again.

 

[Chickassan]

I started tying flies and selling them.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

BTW, the ones I did not/could not pick up disappeared over the past few months. I don't know if the rain just shrunk them up, so to speak, or if local birds were gathering them for their nests. Probably a bit of both.

It makes me anxious when there are all those feathers everywhere. I am constantly doing head counts to make sure I haven't missed a predator attack.

 

[PennyM]

I can relate and I only have 5 chickens! They stay in the run and I have feathers everywhere. If the wind blows hard enough, there'll be a screen of feathers on the lower half of the hardware cloth!

 

[azygous]

I think you're looking for a quick, easy way to keep the feathers picked up. Like maybe a special machine that would suck them up with very little effort?

Try a shop vac and a long extension cord. I use my shop vac outdoors all the time.

 

[adstowe]

Make friends with people who fly fish. They'll gladly come gather up your feathers

 

[Stern]

how to tie flies??

 

[aart]

I thought fly tiers only use very specific feathers, and that most BYC are not producing what they use.

I started tying flies and selling them.

I would love to see them, maybe post some pics to an album you could link here?


I've used a shop vac for piles of feathers gathered in corners, gets the small soft ones OK but the bigger ones will lodge in the hose pretty quick and can be a PITA to get back out.
I used to have a leaf blower/vacuum, but the stuff goes thru the fan so if not easily chopped up(like dry leaves are) that may not work either.
Wetting and raking probably the only solution.
Or maybe one of those lawn sweepers.

Sorry, not much help....

 

[azygous]

I used to work in state parks picking up after slobs. It's an ingrained habit now to pick up litter. I see a feather on the ground, even a wild turkey feather, I pick it up. I can't help myself.

During molt, I pick up a gallon of feathers every
day. Good for the waistline, I hear.