duck feathers?

[joemcc]

Anyone have experience with duck feathers. Been reading they pack down small like goose down and are almost as warm yet cheaper. May be a good alternative

[gargoyle]

Feathers are...well feathers.
Down is down.
Down is fluffy, doesnt have a quill

[JerryW]

I agree with gargoyle. Feathers will never be a good alternative to down. And they're pokey.


Jerry

[HighlandHorde]

Anyone have experience with duck feathers. Been reading they pack down small like goose down and are almost as warm yet cheaper. May be a good alternative

I've been reading and duck down does seem to be comparable to goose down....

[pgibson]

Duck down is not as high of quality to goose down and the plum size is much smaller. Meaning you need much more of it than goose down to get to a certain insulation value. You would be doing good to find 4-500 fill duck in any sort of consistent quality where as most vendors here are using at least 800 fill goose.

[Scotchbonnet]

unless you're talking about Eider down, but that stuff is scarey expensive.

[HighlandHorde]

Duck down is not as high of quality to goose down and the plum size is much smaller. Meaning you need much more of it than goose down to get to a certain insulation value. You would be doing good to find 4-500 fill duck in any sort of consistent quality where as most vendors here are using at least 800 fill goose.

Feather industries has Canadian duck down at 750 Fill power Must be dem Canadian Ducks

[HappyHiker]

Properly rated duck down is equal to similarly rated goose down. As noted above, the finest down in the world is duck down (Eider 1000+ FP). All that (generally) matters is the fill power.

That said, given a duck or a goose of the same age, the goose will have better quality down. However if the duck is older it can have better quality down than a younger goose. I think this is where the "goose down is better" train of thought comes from.

[dant8ro]

I have seen some very nice duck down quilts produced by Ryvr (DIY not a manufacturer!) on the forums. They are quite warm, and the material is lower cost. I do, however, agree with Paul, they just don't seem to squish down as well.

Ryvr has since switched to using 900 PF white goose in almost all of his DIY quilts, including the 24 oz Karo baffle he helped me build!