Bone Broth and Fluffy Feathers

A lot has been going on for the past week.  Last week my mom was hospitalized with chest pains. After an overnight stay, and numerous tests, we found out that she is fit as a fiddle.  Praise God!

Then, our female Anatolian Shepherd, Reserve, finally caught one of the trucks she's been chasing. 

She got banged up pretty good.  She's got a big cut on the inside of her thigh, road rash on her lower leg....and a fractured hip.  I began treatment immediately keeping her warm and giving her doses of Rescue Remedy, and cleaning the wounds.  Then I started making bone broth....I dug through the freezers pulling out all the bones I could find and started a good broth.  Luckily I had some canned already so I started with it, infusing it with Comfrey leaf and mixing in some fresh eggs.  By the second day she could stand and by the third day she was moving around quite a bit...although not using the leg at all. 

Yesterday was a week since she was hit, and she is gingerly using the leg.  I'm sure that she is on the mend....I just hope that she has learned her lesson!

Yesterday we butchered another 6 ducks...all white Pekins.  They sure do clean up nice!

I kept one from this round, a white Pekin hen....to try to cross with our Buff drake.  I like the larger size of the Pekin and hoping to get the faster maturing traits from the Buffs.  We'll see.

Since I was butchering, it gave me an opportunity to make some more bone broth for Reserve.  I used the feet, necks and hearts; added a good handful of Comfrey leaves...

and then filled the pot with filtered water.  This will stay at a very low boil for at least 30 hours to extract all of the nutrients from the bone, and infuse the broth with the comfrey.

By the way, I have been saving duck feathers for about a year now, with the intention of making a comforter.  I think I'm really close to having enough.  Here are the feathers from the 6 ducks from yesterday...

I try to sort them as I'm plucking, but a few of the long feathers still end up in the bucket.  Once the ducks are plucked and I've taken care of the meat, started stock, and disposed of the offal....the last step is saving feathers.

I have a laundry bag that I use for washing the feathers.  It's a cotton muslin bag with a drawstring...

I've had this bag for as long as I can remember, it was the laundry bag I kept in my room when I was growing up.  It just happens to have a picture of a duck on it.  LOL

I use a clean bucket and line it with the laundry bag...

Then I sort the feathers....pulling out any of the long feathers, or ones with really thick quills...

The long feathers could be used in crafts, but since these are plain white...I'm just putting them in the compost..

And what's left is a bag of soft fluffy feathers ready for washing..

I can not stress enough how important it is to keep the feathers wet while working with them.  Once they are dry they expand....and float....and fly around everywhere.  A misting bottle helps.

From here, I tie the bag to secure it.  I can not stress this enough either.  If the bag opens or if it has a hole....you will be picking feathers out of your washing machine forevvver!

I run them through a full wash cycle on the delicate setting.  Once washed, I put them in a bag for storing.  I think I've got enough bags put aside now that I can start on the comforter...but it will be a few days before I've got the time.

Once washed, I do NOT run them through a dry cycle.  I just keep them in a cotton bag for storage and they will dry just fine on their own.  If they were dried in the washing bag, I don't think it would be possible to transfer them to a storage bag....they'd be everywhere!