Craft Store Feathers

[Slackbunny]

Any reason why someone shouldn't use the feathers they sell at craft stores. I'm not sure if what they sell are are real or not, but does it really matter? I just don't have access to good feathers until hunting season rolls around.

[bowtarist]

They should work fine and you'll have a receipt to prove where they came from. 

Probably be commercial grade domestic turkey if I had to guess, but I haven't checked any out @ the craft store. 

good luck, tell us how they look if you get some, dpgratz

[JW_Halverson]

If you are making one or two arrows that would be fine, their feathers are often commercially raised turkeys.  But they are going to be pretty expensive.  If you have turkeys in your area, consider getting some scouting done IMMEDIATELY.  You can serve two purposes...1) you can figure out where they are roosting and where they often go right off the roost to feed, 2) Once they have all left the roost area you can go down under the roost trees and collect feathers.  Turkeys shed quite a few primaries about this time of year.  Dead molted feathers are ok, but if you run them thru the steam out of a teakettle before trying to split them you will have better luck.

[Slackbunny]

I wouldn't be buying very many, just enough to get me through till I can go hunting.

There are turkey around here, but they just recently showed up. There is no licence for them, but I think they are technically an invasive species, so I don't know what the laws are about hunting them. I even talked to a ranger, and he didn't even know what the rule would be.

[JW_Halverson]

Head into the woods about an hour before sunset and find a nice place to set down and read a book or watch the sunset.  As it gets closer to sunset the turkeys will fly up to their roosts.  Turkeys should be gobbling on the roosts by now, just pinpoint where they are and swing back out there the next morning.  Give 'em an hour after sunrise to leave the roost site and you can wander thru harvesting nature's bounty. 

[Dictionary]

Went to the park today saw a bunch of geese around the pond, not a single feather to be found on the ground.....

[JW_Halverson]

The geese will start molting when they start laying eggs.  And they molt FAST!  They wanna get all new feathers ASAP so they can get back to flying.

[Scowler]

The feathers sold at craft stores are domestic turkey.  I treat them just like wild turkey feathers and they work just as well.