Taiwan's humane electric-stunning down plucking is world-renowned, and the Council of Agriculture guarantees no blood down
By Upstream and Downstream reporters Lin Yijun and intern Li Minkai
When it gets cold, you just want to curl up under a light, warm down quilt. How exactly is a down quilt made? Where does down come from? The market is full of down jackets and down quilts of all kinds, enough to make your head spin. How can you pick a product that is truly worth its price? Follow Upstream and Downstream as we explore the secrets and production process of down!
Soft, light down is not easy to obtain. Most of it comes from ducks and geese, because down feathers can retain heat and repel water, allowing ducks and geese to float on the water, and using down as filling for quilts allows them to store heat quickly. In the past, many people thought that obtaining down was a bloody process, but in fact, 90% of down products currently on the market are obtained after electric stunning slaughter, not blood down plucked from live birds.
The Taiwan Feather Exporters' Association believes that the down market is full of confusing practices that pass off inferior goods as superior. Many operators use terms such as "feather silk down" and "tech down" to mislead consumers. Consumers must be careful when purchasing, confirm the fill power of down products and whether they bounce back when patted, and choosing CAS products can further ensure the source of raw materials.
The down hidden beneath the feathers looks like dandelions; most down on the market is duck down
Feathers and down can be divided into feathers and down. Close to the upper back and wings are large feathers and wing feathers; the upper chest area has medium feathers and down; the belly close to the water has small feathers and down. Among these, most down is in the belly close to the water.
Because feathers have a flatter structure with a quill in the middle, they are highly supportive, so they are usually made into pens and shuttlecocks; down, by contrast, hides beneath layer upon layer of feathers. Compared with feathers, which stand upright one by one, down looks like little dandelions, a radial structure in which many fine filaments spread outward from a central point. Because plenty of air remains within the structure, it has excellent heat retention.
They are all feathers, so why can't chicken feathers be made into down quilts? Because the feather structure of land fowl has no oils and is prone to rotting, so it is usually not used as filling. The characteristics and prices of duck down and goose down also differ. Because geese are raised for more days and have larger bodies, goose down is larger in volume than duck down, has better heat retention, and since geese eat plants, goose down has a milder natural odor. However, fewer geese are raised, so goose down is more expensive than duck down, and down on the market is still mostly duck down.
Down production process: electric stunning and plucking, then 12 rounds of washing, sanding and grading
To obtain warm, fluffy down, it must first go through 12 processing steps, including washing, drying, cooling and sanding, and grading inspection. Only after final filling can it be delivered into everyone's hands.
The source of the down production process is the slaughterhouse. After ducks and geese are electrically stunned and slaughtered, they are sent into a plucking machine, where centrifugal force strips 90% of the feathers and down from the body surface. The remaining 10% of fine body-surface feathers are removed with wax. The resulting feathers and down then undergo rough washing, giving feathers that carry large amounts of mud, sand and blood a preliminary cleaning, sterilization, feather separation and packaging to ensure the freshness of the feathers.
After that, primary processors sell the feathers to feather raw material manufacturers, who then carry out "fine washing." Chen Yahui, manager of the raw materials department at Hop Lion Feather Works Corp., explained that feathers and down need repeated washing, drying, cooling and sanding.
"Sanding" uses wind power, shaking and so on to remove dust. Through the viewing window of the cooling sander, countless down feathers can be seen rising and falling, dancing like falling snow. After washing and sanding, the down must also be graded by weight. Inside the house-sized grading machine are S-shaped pipes. Chen Yahui explained that when down flies through the pipes, the lighter the down cluster, the farther it flies, and the longer the distance it travels. After grading, the down clusters undergo quality inspection.
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