Sorry to be putting this into a food-type forum, but I figured the people here would be more likely to know the answers than say the animals & pets forum. My husband & I will be getting a new bed-cover (quilt, comforter, duvet... who knows what) and accessories, and I was looking at all of the different colors & styles. And I'm just a little overwhelmed by how many ways there are to cover your bed but I am sooo excited! Anyway, we found a nice comforter in a palatable color... but it's stuffed with down. Do you have to kill a birdie to get down, or does the bird shed all those feathers? This might sound like a stupid question, but my sister had a pet dove and over the period of one year she saved enough feathers from the bottom of Hemmingway's cage to make a full size set of angel's wings. So I do know that birds shed a LOT of feathers. Also, I found some loverly Southwestern Indian-print throw pillows & a matching saddle blanket... but they're a wool/cotton blend. I know you can shear a sheep without killing it, but does it get hurt in some way? Obviously there's the chance for an occasional nick or scratch, but I mean do they do something awful to the sheep? I've always preferred natural fibers & materials to polyesters & synthetics. So I'm drawn to this type of thing. The wool is especially nice, as it's also hypo-allergenic. But now I'm starting to ask these pesky questions like "well yeah, but what happens to the animal?" and some of my choices don't sound quite as nice. One of the other fibers we've seen lately is Bamboo. Does anyone know about this? How eco-friendly would something like this be??? love, mom
Birds do shed down feathers. However, not in the speed and quantity that industry requires to make those covers. Industry, no doubt, breeds and kills birds in order to increase production of the down insulation. Just like, you kill rabbits to make rabbit fur gloves, and you kill foxes to make fox-fur scarves. The shaving process is not really the problem, but it's definitely as brutal and unpleasant as the head-shaving process in the Marines (where they just take a razor and buzz the hair off, it hurts, but you get over it quickly). The problem lies in the keeping of the sheep. Sheep are bred, and ultimately housed in cruel ways, in order to, again, facilitate the production of wool. However, since sheep grow wool back fairly fast, they are kept alive, but not in good health. I'm a vegan; I would not buy any wool products. Perhaps that will answer your question more appropriately. Yeah, they really aren't that nice, at all. Bamboo is a type of somewhat-pliable wood that is grown mostly in the Orient. It is not a fiber, but it can (through technology) be "fiberized." There is no cruelty to animals with bamboo, other than reducing the amount of natural habitat available for animals, which is not much of a problem, since bamboo is usually grown in crop fields (for industry), and is not available as animal habitat to begin with. It's not like they are cutting down natural forests of bamboo every day. I like bamboo. It's neat. =)
there is much cruelty that goes into "down". i wanted a down coat for winter so i bought one second hand from ebay......obviously if i hadnt found one second hand i would have gone without one. bedding however isnt really something that you would probably want to buy second hand. the above post pretty much covered everything i was going to say.
Down (and silk): http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=121 Wool: http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=55
Darn. I'd figured that down was probably not a good option, but was really hoping that wool would be okay. (sigh) Anyway, I found the neatest microsuede comforter set. So I'll have the look of suede which will go with everything else in the room, but no animals will have to suffer... AND it's machine washable! Now I've gotta find some nice southwestern pillows & a throw blanket for a splash of color... I'd originally been thinking of getting an old Indian blanket to cut up for pillows & curtain trim, and a saddle blanket to hang off the footboard. Dunno what I'll do for that quite yet. love, mom
I have enver had a down anything and won't being vegan. One time I slept at a friend's house and she had a pillow that had down in it. I didn't know about it at the tme but I will tell you that I had an allergic reaction and my face itched like hell the next morning.
Pamela, lots of people are allergic to the mites in feathers. It's not really the dead animals but the live ones.
stay away from anything cotton as cotton requires prodigious amounts of pesticides to grow hemp fibered matresses are ok since they can be grown without pesticides
