Down
A down (also dune , down feather or "lower feather", Latin pluma ) is a feather with a short keel and very soft and long, ray-shaped feather branches without hooks. In a living bird , the feather branches are negatively charged by body movements and thus always have the greatest possible distance from one another. This creates air cushions in the down dress, which protect against cold or heat ( thermal insulation ). In most bird species, down forms the “undergarment” under the contour feathers ; some groups of birds (e.g. ratites ) do not have them.
The nestling down, which forms the plumage of many young birds , is not real down, but modified contour feathers.
The first tradition of down feathers as a filling for bedding comes from the period 204 to 222 AD. According to this, Kaiser Heliogabal had pillows which had to be filled with rabbit fur or with the most delicate down from the underside of the wings of the partridges.
Word origin
The word 'down' comes from Icelandic . The down feathers of the eider , whose name is also of Icelandic origin, were introduced into the empire from the north in the Middle Ages . For example, Middle Low German 'dun [e]' (14th century) is a borrowing from Old Icelandic 'dunn' (down feather). In the 17th century, the Low German 'Dune' appears for the first time with the High German sound 'au'.
properties
Down has a high elasticity . For example, if you squeeze down in your hand and then let it go, it will quickly unfold again and find its way back to its original shape. In addition, down is lighter than other types of feathers. Due to its three-dimensional structure, down can trap significantly more air than feathers, which are characterized by rather flat feather flags with a pronounced quill. In the down-processing industry, this property of thermal insulation is measured by its filling power ; the internationally used unit of measurement is called cuin .
The weight of the down depends on the species and breed of the bird as well as the individual age of the birds and therefore shows clear differences. One kilogram of goose down contains around 250,000 to 400,000 down. From the finest and lightest down of the eider ducks , around 500,000 to a million down must be collected for one kilogram.
Down production
Basically (also "in the down recovery between" live plucking " Puszta called Rupf") and "battle" - or "Totrupf" distinction, that is, down to a bird and only after both the lifetime death and battles are won . Eiderdown has a special position . They come from free- living eider ducks ( Somateria mollissima ) and are collected from their nests , which are padded with their own belly down by the females when they breed .
Feathers, and thus also down, occur particularly in those countries in which poultry is farmed on a large scale . Over 90% of the world's down and feathers come from slaughterhouses. The animals are slaughtered and then mostly mechanically plucked before the meat goes into further processing.
With the traditional, "rural" live plucking, down is removed from the animals by hand ("hand plucking") several times a year. This happens as part of the hormonally controlled moulting process of birds, in which old plumage is shed and new plumage grows back. The down is no longer firmly attached. With careful handling, such plucking can be largely painless for the animals.
With live plucking in commercial or industrial aviculture, however, hardly any consideration is given to individual moulting progress of the birds - partly due to the enormous population size of hundreds of thousands of animals, and usually low-paid piecework (high time pressure) leads to greatly increased stress as well as not animal-friendly plucking processes. According to animal welfare organizations, plucking - especially in the case of geese in combination with fattening - often leads to the birds suffering unnecessarily; Broken bones and other injuries in this type of down production are not uncommon. That is why live plucking is repeatedly criticized by animal welfare organizations . The market share of down made from live plucking is now around 3%.
Due to the lack of company-independent quality seals for the origin of the down, it is also not possible for consumers to see whether goods declared as "from dead plucking" actually come from relevant companies and whether "hand-plucking down" comes from companies that adhere to the moulting cycle and Treat your poultry as appropriately as possible, or not. Stiftung Warentest came to the conclusion in a study of ten suppliers of down duvets: “Not a single supplier has shown us which farms their down comes from - not even those who guarantee the consumer with a seal that the down used and Feathers do not come from living animals ”, and concludes from the industry certificates: The“ seals prove to be worthless ”.
Animal welfare
In the European Union , under EU Commissioner John Dalli, new regulations for plucking live geese are being considered. Several trading companies and mail order companies in Germany have spoken out in favor of a ban on live plucking, including Tchibo, Bettenklick.de, Otto Group (Otto Versand, BAUR, Heine, Schwab and Witt), Kaufland, Norma, Lidl, Tegut, Spar, AGM (C&C Pick-up wholesalers - Rewe International), Unito Versand & Dienstleistungen GmbH (Universal, Quelle, Otto, Ackermann), Reiter Betten & Vorzüge GmbH, Leopold Trünkel GmbH, Stritzinger Import-Export GmbH. In addition, standards such as the Responsible Down Standard (RDS) , Global Traceable Down Standard (Global TDS) or Downpass Standard help in tracing the supply chain for down products.
use
Thanks to its ability to provide “warmth with almost no weight”, down is used for thermal insulation in bedding , sleeping bags and jackets , among other things .
Relevant standards for the down processing industry are:
- DIN EN 1885 Feathers and down - terms and definitions
- DIN EN 12934 Feathers and down - Identification of the composition of finished feathers and down as the sole filling material
Superstition
Sometimes it is advisable not to sleep on feather or down pillows, as these are supposed to "pull" the toothache, which can be attributed to superstition . The intensification of the toothache is due to the lying position and thus the changed blood pressure situation in the head area, which also increases the pain-inducing pressure in the pulp cavity of the tooth.
Organizations
Organizations with a direct link to down are the Association of the German Down and Feather Industry (VDFI) in Germany and the European Down and Feather Association (EDFA, Association of the European Bed Feather and Bedding Industry) - both based in Mainz .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ History of the down feather , accessed on July 25, 2012.
- ↑ Herman Hirt: Etymology of the New High German Language; Presentation of the German vocabulary in its historical development , Munich 1921, p. 352.
- ↑ a b c four paws - critical text on down production .
- ↑ Down and cruelty to animals , allnatura.
- ↑ Duvets tested: cozy and warm thanks to cruelty to animals? Stiftung Warentest in Nov. 2013.
- ↑ http://www.presseportal.de/pm/17477/1758026/vier_pfoten_stiftung_fuer_tierschutz
- ↑ Responsible Down Standard , accessed October 11, 2019 at Responsibledown.org
- ↑ Global Traceable Down Standard , accessed October 11, 2019 in Nsf.org
- ↑ Winter jacket without cruelty to animals: You can trust this down seal of approval , accessed on February 4, 2020 in Option.news
- ↑ Primal Man Was Hairy , Der Spiegel, May 5, 1986. Retrieved September 26, 2015.
- ↑ Elmar Hellwig, Joachim Klimek, Thomas Attin: Introduction to tooth preservation . Deutscher Ärzte-Verlag GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7691-3448-3 , p. 353 ( google.com ).
- ↑ vdfi.de
- ↑ edfa.eu