Duck hunting and down

**Girotogo** · 10-15-2012, 15:43

My buddy is going 1 or 2 week hunting trinp and he comes back with lots of ducks, geese, etc. Can he take the down from the birds and use it to make a UQ or TQ? If yes, how do you clean and prep the down?

**Gresh** · 10-15-2012, 15:48

I'm interested to hear the answer to this.

**wwk10** · 10-15-2012, 16:04

OP
I recently dealt with down for the first time.
While I was doing it, I though "How in the world do people collect this stuff?"
I think it will be very very very very difficult.

**wwk10** · 10-15-2012, 16:08

Not to hijack, but when I read the title of your post what I thought was:

Duck hunting is cold
Duck hunting is wet
How do duck hunters protect their down jackets etc in this environment.

I have my new DIY down UQ.
I live near the coast.

**Montalaskan** · 10-15-2012, 16:18

I doubt you'd get enough down to make a quilt without going way over your legal limit of ducks/geese.

**Beast 71** · 10-15-2012, 18:54

I saw an episode of "Dirties Jobs" that dealt with down collecting. The business was located in a spot where goose and duck hunting was popular and the hunters would bring in undressed birds and they would clean them in exchange for the down. The dirtiest part was the dressing out, not the plucking. Maybe it's on Netflix.

**Lost_Biker** · 10-15-2012, 19:29

Here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYUll4ApTsw

**SCWalker** · 10-16-2012, 08:13

Originally Posted by Lost_Biker

Here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYUll4ApTsw

Leave it to Mike.

**SoSoBean** · 10-16-2012, 09:42

Thanks Giro for posting for me. I just created an account so now I can post. So I'll come home with hopefully 140 duck down (7 hunters x 20 in possession back across the US border) Snow geese will be tough to pluck the down feathers off because of their thin skin, the feathers along with the skin comes off (very messy job). Although I may have the Hetorites do the geese (potentially 420 snow geese).
So - how do you clean and dry the stuff without destroying the down? Has anybody from this forum done this?

**Acer** · 10-16-2012, 09:55

You would definitely have to wash the down as its going to stink quite a bit, and very messy. I would think your better off to just buy it but let us know how you do as I skin most of my ducks and geese instead of plucking. Way much easier to clean that way.