Talk:Down feather

Avian flu
It has been suggested on this page that all down feathers are sterilized and thus not potential carriers of avian flu. I removed this because it was an authoritative health statement without documentation. When I did a Google search, I did not find much in the way of objective, informed views on the matter except an ambiguous NYT article and a timesonline article that seems to say quite the opposite. Can anyone dig up something more definitive? Thanks. -- Epastore 03:54, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Power figures
The fill power figures do not make sense. Since a cm is smaller than an inch, the cm^3 figures should be higher than the in^3 figures. But they are smaller.

216.194.124.36 (talk) 23:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

With regard to the fill power figures. The cm^3 values are per Gram, the in^3 values per Ounce. A CM is ~0.39in but a gram is ~0.035oz. Would not the cm^3 values look smaller based on the weight difference?? 68.80.85.7 (talk) 04:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Article merge
It has been suggested (way back in Dec. '08) that this article and powder down be merged. I can personally see no reason as to why we shouldn't—and it would help to expand two stub articles. Does anybody else have an opinion? MeegsC | Talk 13:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with the idea that powder down should be merged into this. Filoplume had a couple of articles linking into it and I have redirected that to this article. Shyamal (talk) 16:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge. "Powder down" fits nicely here. &mdash;JerryFriedman  (Talk) 04:08, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

It might be better to merge both Powder down and any info relevant to birds in Down feather into Feather, while the rest of the info in Down feather (relating to its use as insulation in human products) either stand alone or be merged into something like Thermal insulation. (Copied from WP Bird project talk page). Maias (talk) 04:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I certainly would not want to see down feather merged with feather. If that were done, what of flight feather? There is surely space for a good article on down feathers, covering both bird-related and human aspects. But I would support merging powder down into down feather. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 07:15, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

down in young altricial birds
The second sentence says that young altricial birds are clad only in down. In the lemma on altriciality on the contrary is written that altricial species have young that lack down. This looks like a contradiction. How can we correct/explain this? --Dick Bos (talk) 15:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The word altricial was added to the lede by an anon IP way back in 2019 and not caught. I've removed it. Further down in the article are two sentences you might find helpful. "Natal down is the layer of down feathers that cover most birds at some point in their early development. Precocial nestlings are already covered with a layer of down when they hatch, while altricial nestlings develop their down layer within days or weeks of hatching. Megapode hatchlings are the sole exception; they are already covered with contour feathers when they hatch." MeegsC (talk) 18:36, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

maybe useful photo
Dropping this here, since it's fairly sharp and may be useful for a close-up to see the wispy down feathers sticking out of a juvenile bird. Not adding to the article myself because I'm not sure the best way to describe it and there are already several pictures. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 19:53, 22 December 2021 (UTC)