Taiwan's down processing technology leads the world, humane electricity takes down, and the Council of Agriculture guarantees that it will never buy "blood down".

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When the weather is cold, I want to hide in the light and warm duvet. How on earth is a duvet born? Where did the down come from? There are many kinds of down jackets and quilts on the market, which are dazzling. How can we find genuine products? Follow the "upstream and downstream" to explore the secrets and work flow of down!

Soft down is not easy to come by, mostly from ducks and geese, because feathers can keep warm and waterproof, let ducks and geese float on the water, and make quilts filled with down to quickly accumulate heat. In the past, many people thought that obtaining down was a bloody process, but in fact, 90% of the down products sold on the market are obtained after electric slaughter, not blood feather plucked alive.

The Taiwan Feather Export Industry Association believes that the down market is full of fish eyes mixed with beads, and many operators confuse the public with "velvet" and "technological down." consumers must be cautious when choosing and buying down products, confirming whether the down products will bounce back, and buying CAS products can also ensure the source of raw materials.

The duck and goose down (photo / Lin Yijun) is obtained after 12 times of washing and sanding (photo / Lin Yijun). The down hidden under the feather is like a dandelion, and most of the feathers on the market are duck down.

Down can be divided into feathers and down, close to the upper back and wings are large pieces of hair and wings; the upper chest part of the middle piece of hair and down; close to the surface of the abdomen is a small piece of hair and down, most of which are close to the surface of the abdomen.

Feathers are usually made into pens and badminton because of their flat structure and stalked in the middle, while feathers hide under layers of feathers. Compared to feathers standing upright one by one, feathers look like small dandelions, a radiant structure of many filaments scattered outward from the central point, and the heat storage is good because there is still a lot of air in the structure.

They are all feathers. Why can't chicken feathers be made into duvets? Because the feather structure of land birds is greasy and perishable, it is not usually used as a filler. The down characteristics and prices of ducks and geese are also different, because geese have long breeding days and large size, the volume of goose down is larger than duck down, the heat storage effect is better, and the goose is vegetarian, and the natural body smell of goose down is lighter. However, the number of geese is small, so the price of goose down is higher than that of duck down, and duck down is still the majority of down on the market.

Feather and down (photo provided / Helong Feather Collection) Down production process: electric depilation, after 12 times washing, sanding, grading

In order to obtain warm down, you need to go through 12 processes, including washing, drying, cooling and sanding, grading inspection, etc., and then fill the quilt before it can be delivered to everyone.

The source of the down production process is in the slaughterhouse, where ducks and geese are electrically slaughtered and sent to an depilation machine to remove 90% of the feathers from the body surface by centrifugal force, and the remaining 10% of the body surface fine hair is removed with wax. The feathers obtained will then be roughly washed, and the feathers with a lot of sediment and blood will be initially cleaned, sterilized, divided and packaged to ensure the freshness of the feathers.

Then primary processors sell feathers to feather raw material manufacturers for "fine washing." Chen Yahui, manager of the raw materials department of Helong Wool Factory, explains that down needs to be washed, dried and cooled and sanded over and over again.

"sanding" is to remove the dust through wind, sloshing, etc. From the viewing window of the cooling sanding machine, you can see countless down rising and falling, flying like snow. The down after cleaning and sanding has to pass through the weight classification, such as the S-shaped pipeline in the classifier of the house. Chen Ya-hui explains that when the down flies over the pipeline, the lighter the down, the farther the down will fly, the longer the distance, and the quality inspection will be carried out again.