[HesterF]

Another query that might be best elsewhere. I've just plucked a drake that was all beautiful, fluffy, downy white feather and not very much meat (he was young but a bully!). It seems a shame to bin the fluff so I wondered about making up a pillow with them - probably using a pillow case and just putting them in because I can't be bothered to sew it all from scratch. Do I need to do anything to the feathers first? He was pretty clean and I'll exclude the bigger wing feathers but most of the others look good to go - and no sign of mites or lice on him.

[Bionic]

Hester, I haven't really got a clue but it can't be right just to put them straight into the pillow case without doing anything else to them.
At the very least I would put them in the freezer for a while to make sure that any tiny mites are killed.

[madchickenlady]

I too would like to know as I have a number of drakes to dispatch soon, do they have to be white? Also, would anyone be interested in a magpie runner drake? I don't really want to dispatch him if possibility of someone wanting to breed.

[HesterF]

No, I'm sure they don't need to be white - just soft and fluffy. Once they're inside a pillow, they could be any colour! I dispatched a Cayuga earlier in the year and did think about it then but didn't get around to it and he had less fluff than this boy who was just so fluffy! I've bunged them in a pillow (dismembered an old IKEA child's pillow in the end) and put it in the freezer (good call - didn't even think about that despite doing it with all the bee stuff). Then my daughter is going to try it out - we'll see whether it starts to smell after a while.

[madchickenlady]

I will watch with baited breath!

[Louise Gaunt]

I had a look in my Mrs Beeton, she only has advice for washing an eider down quilt, using warm water and boiled soap., but nothing on preparing feathers for a quilt or pillow. If they are clean I guess freeze to get rid of live things and see how it goes. We have a feather duvet that smelt a bit when we first got it, so perhaps there is no formal preparation needed.

[Clarebelle]

I plan to do this at some point and had decided to first put the feathers in some ticking and double sew the seam then put it in the washing machine. Haven't tried it though and don't know if this would ruin the feathers. I'd be wary about not trying some kind of washing

[madchickenlady]

I found these extracts on 'The classroom @ The coop' Hope they may be helpful.

I think I would put them in the freezer for some days to be quite certain there weren't any "stowaways" (mite, lice etc).

 I seem to remember my old mother telling of how they used to wash the feathers. They put them in a large pillow-case and sowed it shut. After washing in natural soap and rinsing thoroughly in luke warm water several times, it was important to shake the pillowcase while the feathers were drying to keep them from sticking together. The more - the better.

You will have to use down proof fabric (percale) and double small stitched sewing to keep the feathers/down in.
To fluff up the feathers/down after washing you can dry it in the tumble drier, cool, adding a few tennis balls.

As real down is too soft for a pillow and small feathers are kind of prickly, a good feather/down pillow should be made two-layered. One case just a little bit smaller filled with a feathers/down mix into another case with a layer of soft down between the two.
Sleeps like heaven! cool