*This entry is directly from their website.*
All Whiting Farms products are thoroughly washed in a mild detergent before they are packaged for retail. Other than by user choice, there is no need to wash any Whiting product at home. It is good and acceptable to have some pliability to a cape or saddle pelt via natural oils. However, if the tier prefers to wash the feather pelt, we recommend hand-washing the feathers only using a VERY mild detergent such as Woolite ® brand soap. Thoroughly rinse the feathers, taking care to preserve the pelt portion of the cape or saddle in order to keep all the feathers intact. Do not try to wash out the natural oils in the skin portion of the pelt! If this happens, the pelt will become frail and brittle and most likely the feather condition will follow the same. Air dry the pelt on top of a cloth towel for at least a day or two. Do not try the trick of drying the feather pelt in a laundry bag inside a tumbling dryer. Unless of course you want feathers for stuffing a pillow!
Storing a cleaned and dry feather pelt requires nothing more than a piece of cardboard as a backing and a piece of paper towel. Fold one sheet of a paper towel in quarters and place between the skin pelt and cardboard. This will prevent any oils from being overly absorbed by the cardboard. Store the pelt in a zip lock style plastic bag to prevent any potential bug entry and to keep the feathers straight. A tip we follow at Whiting Farms: Never allow the feathers from one pelt touch the skin of another, always store pelts back-to-back, or “skin-to-skin” as we say. Better yet, store each feather pelt in a separate plastic bag with a cardboard backer and absorbent material in-between. All Whiting pelt products are packaged for you already in this manner. As for storage, do not stack the feather pelts on top of one another in a box, rather lay them on their sides so the feathers aren’t compressed from the weight of what’s on top. We use plastic bins with secure lids to store all feather pelts. We recommend using the same method at home.
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