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Show Many New Uses Found For Chicken Feathers The government is taking all eider duck down and geese feathers, leaving leav-ing chicken and turkey feathers for , civilian use. ' About 80 per cent of feathers for pillow:s, quilts and cushions came from Europe and China in peacetime forcing manufacturers during the i war to improve domestic supply sources, which now also must be tapped for increased war needs. Public prejudice against chicken feathers for pillows and cushion stuffing has waned somewhat because be-cause of improved methods of preparing pre-paring them, manufacturers said, adding that now they are more sanitary, sani-tary, while a curling process has made them softer. More than 100,000,000 pounds of feathers now are produced annually i from American poultry flocks, com- pared with only about 20.000,000 pounds before the war. About 95 per cent of the total is made up of ' chicken feathers. Even in surgery,, feathers have taken on a new value. Chemists have developed a method for dissolving dis-solving them and producing a protein plastic. Threads of this plastic can be used as sutures for sewing wounds because they are strong and are absorbed by the body. i Trade sources say that down makes ideal sleeping bags for soldiers sol-diers and for fliers' jackets. Kapok, formerly used extensively in America Ameri-ca as pillow-stuffing, now is unobtainable unob-tainable from the Dutch East Indies In-dies and available supplies on hand are used by the government. Poultry flock owners get about five cents a pound for chicken and turkey feathers and approximately $1 a j pound for down from waterfowl. |
