turkey feathers

[sailordad]

well i was fortunate enoufgr to aquire some whole wings today
fresh off the bird

a i was removing the primaries and secondaires i noticed that some of the feathers are immature
what i mean is that they are still growing out of the sheath and have not reached their full growth as of yet
these immaure feathers pulled out much much easier than the mature feathers onthe same wing
they even have the sheath still attached and you can see the feather inside of it yet
it is also filled with blood etc in the sheath

now my question is   "can you still use these feathers?"
im assuming they will be fine and that i should only used the mature part of the feather and not was is still in the sheath
and how should i store them?
any help would be appreciated 

[John K]

I dont' use that part of the feather Tim. I store my feathers in a big zip lock bag with a littel Borax in it, seems to work for me.

[sailordad]

so just snip the sheath part off and store as usual?

[John K]

Yep

[Pappy]

I never pull them .I just snip them off so I don't use that part either.I store mine in
some old ammo boxes,They seal tight. I fog them with bug spray and lock the lid down.Some
folks store them in the freezer,They just need to be air tight or the mites will usually work on them pretty hard after a year or so.  Usually done see what you are talking about unless it's a young bird,but most of my feathers come from the Spring hunts. Don't get many in the fall.
   Pappy

[Eric Krewson]

I collect thousands of feathers every year from my turkey hunting friends. David Mitchell, who runs a custom feather sales company told me to sprinkle borax on them to keep the bugs at bay. I put them in a plastic bag, like the paper is delivered in on rainy days, add a table spoon of borax and shake the bag, no bugs ever after the feathers get a little borax dust in them.

I used to store them in moth balls but the moth ball stink stays with them forever.