selling goose feathers - what do I need to know?

Geese are starting to moult which means a lot of lovely free feathers.  

I know people use these in crafts, quills, fletching, and historical reenactments.  

What do I need to know and do to sell goose feathers online?  I'm assuming some sort of cleaning will happen.  

I honestly don't know, but we've been saving the nice flight feathers. We donated last year's batch to my son's Medieval class, so everyone could make their own quill pen. I'm thinking washing is a good idea, especially if the feather got dropped in poop.

https://www.etsy.com/search?q=goose%20feathers

Just on a whim, I searched "goose feathers" on Etsy. The results might give you some ideas for marketing. Maybe look through the listings for what sort of cleaning the sellers have done?

Howdy!
As far as random bird feathers are concerned, cleaning them is, in theory, easy.
From what I have done in the past, and what I'm planning to do shortly, Stick them in a pillow case with a drawstring through the casing, or (as in my case) a purpose made drawstring bag.
Put them in your washing machine on cold water, delicate cycle or use your favorite "agitator method" in whatever you use for laundry, still cold water and gentle agitation.
When the washer's finished carefully dump them out of the bag (turning it inside out is faster for me) and dry them on a sheet or whatever you have so as not to get them dirty again.

If you find any feathers needing a deeper cleaning (because dried bird poop is one of the most stubborn things to remove), put them in enough water to cover them, and swish them around until you can loosen the poop (or whatever else the feathers may have gotten into) and then gently rinse them as needed.

I use tiny amounts of soap in the washing, nothing for the rinse, and let them air dry before double checking that they are "good" feathers (the feathers look like they should in your opinion).
Good feathers go off for crafts, and sewing decoration. Or, I guess for sale. (I don't sell mine but understand that there is a market for them in different crafts and, more specifically, fly tying.)
Bad feathers get trimmed down, removing the rachis and any damaged bits, and then using the trimmed bits as a sew-on trim (sewing them on to a grosgrain ribbon or stable fabric tape before doing so).
Or down/ down and feathers/ feather only stuffing for whatever needs stuffed.

Good luck!

As far as selling goose feathers? Your better bet is Etsy. Better still if you can share a site with good friends who are also makers or have something to sell. (Etsy's current TOS and their fee is too much of a percentage of sales for my tastes, but the more customers you have coming to your virtual booth, the "cheaper" it is per Maker.)

Be warned. Much of the goose down and goose feather/down mixes are coming from China where they have no qualms about potentially killing the birds while plucking. That said, it's very cheap and a lot of crafters don't look at the "Made by" tag. There's no way I'm going to pluck my geese for their down, though I will pick up what I find in the yard.

If you use the goose down in small pillow forms, those are easily transportable and light weight.

Feather crafts, and all the things you can do with them, are easily made into kits and sold to people who want to do crafty things, but don't know how. (dream catchers, painting on (you can, it's just really fiddly work) feathers, feather paint brushes, jewelry, and so on) You would have to make up instructions and include a reasonable amount of whatever your customer would turn into a thing. Geese have lovely feathers with flat tops (less of a feather shape and more of a truncated edge which would be great for making paint brushes, or layering onto a solid form).

Or try to sell really unusual feathers to a local small craft spot, or scout around for people who use a lot of feathers for different reasons. Native Americans use a lot of feathers in some of the performance dances, crafting clubs, Maker Get-together-s" are also possible.

I have saved mine because I sometimes use them in crafts, or making jewelry, or fancier clothing.

Good luck on finding the perfect market for you. There are many options available.

i work with feathers a lot doing craft work. the best way i have to sterilize and clean feathers is over a boiling pot of water.
i use an electric kettle and that makes it a bit easier, bring a bowl too for if you want to rinse some or dip them.

once the water is at a nice boil i open the lid and this prevents the auto shut off of my electric kettle, and i move them over the steam ...in large grouping first, and then one by one for the ones that need the most.

the steam will also nicely reshape them if some get "ruffled" or lose their shape. some times you need a bit more than this, and so now there is boiling water to dip them into in spots, or pour over into the bowl. another thing is while i do this usually they are bigger than the opening of my kettle and you can rest them across the top...moving them and flipping them as you go along...

you want to get the whole thing steamed really well so it takes some time, this not only cleans them with little bits of water but it also sterilizes them as long as you do it for a while to get them nice and hot.

I would be selling these in my Etsy shop.

There seem to be two origins of goose feathers for sale on Etsy.  One is from harvesting the goose (aka, leftover from killing for food) and the other is from moulting.  Mine would be from gathering up the feathers as they naturally fall off the goose in the summer.

I feel there's an advantage to this from the customer point of view.  I'm trying to think of words that a customer would search for.
Ethical, moulting, natural, ...?

'Cruelty-free, harvested from the naturally shed feathers of healthy, happy geese'?

Here's some info about exporting them.

https://inspection.canada.ca/animal-health/terrestrial-animals/exports/export-policies/2010-2/eng/1321200169781/1321200453157

I don't understand what they mean by "processed" or "treated"

r ranson wrote:Here's some info about exporting them.

https://inspection.canada.ca/animal-health/terrestrial-animals/exports/export-policies/2010-2/eng/1321200169781/1321200453157

I don't understand what they mean by "processed" or "treated"

Not 100% certain, but wording in the document suggests processed means steamed (or equivalent) to kill pathogens and treated means decorative amendment. Presumably this is a step beyond processed...steamed (I think we can safely assume pathogen removal is a basic requirement for export) plus perhaps dyed.

Andrea Locke wrote:
Not 100% certain, but wording in the document suggests processed means steamed (or equivalent) to kill pathogens and treated means decorative amendment. Presumably this is a step beyond processed...steamed (I think we can safely assume pathogen removal is a basic requirement for export) plus perhaps dyed.

I was thinking similarly - probably 'treated' means chemically treated for pretty much anything from adding colors, softeners, or stiffeners, to bleaching or bug repellent.

r ranson,

I was wondering, how did it go with your plan to sell ethical cruelty-free feathers? How did you prepare them, did you list them on Etsy, and was that successful?

Just another idea: I recently got a bunch of goose and duck feathers for printmaking studio. They use them for wiping air bubbles off a metal plate during etching.

I was buying a duck to cook from a small farmer, maybe not permaculture but animals were raised very well. I asked about the feathers and they gave me them for free. At home I just washed them in hot water, seems like the best method for cleaning.

Maybe not very useful for you as I didn't really buy the feathers, but maybe some artists will need just them.

Andrea Locke wrote:r ranson,

I was wondering, how did it go with your plan to sell ethical cruelty-free feathers? How did you prepare them, did you list them on Etsy, and was that successful?

I have them.  I washed them.

I haven't photographed them yet.  I want to do some writing with the quills as an example.

And then... maybe make a tutorial on how to cut the feathers into quills.

I also planned to make a video about cutting quills but haven't done this yet.

So basically I overthought it and got lost in the planning and nothing got done.  

r ranson wrote:

Andrea Locke wrote:r ranson,

I was wondering, how did it go with your plan to sell ethical cruelty-free feathers? How did you prepare them, did you list them on Etsy, and was that successful?

I have them.  I washed them.

I haven't photographed them yet.  I want to do some writing with the quills as an example.

And then... maybe make a tutorial on how to cut the feathers into quills.

I also planned to make a video about cutting quills but haven't done this yet.

So basically I overthought it and got lost in the planning and nothing got done.  

Thanks for the update! I can't tell you how many times the same thing has happened to me, LOL.

I've just learned to accept that this is a thing I do.  When I'm ready I'll come back to it.  By then, I'll probably have another year's worth of feathers.  

I got lucky this year, because my kids' class was learning about the colonial era, so I turned a bunch of feathers into quills for them to take turns using in class, and then gave each kid their own uncarved feather to keep (I totally didn't have time to carve 30+ feathers...). And then one of their teachers asked for feathers for another class she teaches. Now I'm totally out of goose feathers, just in time for them to start shedding again!

I ended up washing a BUNCH of feathers a few weeks ago. I was teaching my history class about cleaning during the Renaissance and thought it'd be fun for them to make their own feather dusters (some used the spare branches to make brooms, too!).

To wash the feathers, decided to go with a diluted solution of apple cider vinegar. I didn't want anything too alkaline, and I didn't want to strip the preening oil off the feathers. I figured if my ducks took baths in apple cider water when sick, then it should be good for their feathers. Here's my process:

Fill a bowl with warm water and a glug of apple cider vinegar. I did this in the sink!

Add a few handfuls of feathers at a time to soak in the solution.

Pick up a feather and gently swipe my fingers down each feather in the vinegar water to get off any grime or poop. always swiping from the base to the tips, and out from the spine of the feathers to the edge. I tried to pretend I was a duck preening.

Rinse the feather in warm water

Lay the feather on a towel. (Once a towel was covered with feathers, I put a new dish towel on top to add another row of feathers. This was only because I ran out of space, though. Thankfully, none of the feathers ended up deformed by the weight of dishtowels.)

This did a great job of removing what little bits of poop were on some of the feathers, and none of the feathers ended up looking dry or clumpy!


(Making feather dusters is quite easy that even 7 year olds were making them on their own! Here's info on how to make your own feather duster. The brooms use the same process, just with sticks or straw instead of feathers--my 10-12 year old students were making those independently. Here's a tutorial on making brooms)

r ransom wrote:There seem to be two origins of goose feathers for sale on Etsy.  One is from harvesting the goose (aka, leftover from killing for food) and the other is from moulting.  Mine would be from gathering up the feathers as they naturally fall off the goose in the summer.

I feel there's an advantage to this from the customer point of view.  I'm trying to think of words that a customer would search for.
Ethical, moulting, natural, ...?

There's definitely an advantage to them being "cruelty free." When I was teaching my lesson about making feather dusters and mentioned that the feathers came from my ducks and chickens and geese, I watched one of the moms  of my students make the saddest face. Then I continued saying that they were ones that I'd picked up in the yard as my birds shed them. Her face perked up with the biggest smile, and she said something like, "Oh, I love that!"

For selling feathers verbiage, maybe something like "cruelty-free feathers naturally shed by my flock of geese."