General

 

The colour “grey” for filling material in no way signifies that the animal has been bred for the purpose of foie gras production.

 

The quality of down cannot be determined on the basis of the colour.

 

 

Down and feathers are a unique natural resource. Since feathers and down offer a combination of naturalness, heat retention with minimal weight, active breathing and moisture transfer they are especially suited as filling material of bedding articles and clothing. As far as we are aware, there is no alternative material available which offers the same properties.

Down and feathers from waterfowl (geese and ducks) are a unique natural resource. They are used as filling material for quilts, pillows and clothing as they offer a combination of qualities such as breathability, humidity transport and thermal insulation together with a low weight. These special features contribute to the homogeneous distribution of feathers and down inside the quilt as well as to the fact that already small amounts of feathers and down are sufficient for the filling of a quilt.

 

 

European manufacturers use in most cases feathers and down from waterfowl (geese and ducks) to produce the fillings of bedding articles (quilts and pillows).
 

 

The bedfeather manufacturers purchase down and feathers as by-products of the slaughtering. These bedfeather-processing companies are grouped together statistically in the industrial sector called “slaughtering of poultry – processing of the animal by-products” and must be provided with a certificate of admission issued by a competent veterinary authority to operate.

 

 

Ca. 98% of the amount of waterfowl feathers and down produced world-wide are harvested after the slaughtering of the fowl – as a by-product of the poultrymeat production. The consumers are mainly demanding young and tender poultrymeat. Therefore, the animals are usually slaughtered around the time of their first moulting.

 

 

Usually, neither ducks nor geese are being bred or kept for the sole purpose of gathering down and feathers. For thousands of years, poultry has been part of human nutrition and has been kept mainly for this purpose. Down and feathers are a natural by-product of the poultrymeat industry or the poultry farming, respectively.