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Today we will be transported to Iceland to see how real eiderdown is made.
It's one of the warmest natural fibers you can find, but it doesn't come cheap.
And a double eiderdown blanket can cost upwards of $8,000.
It is harvested from eider nests found in the wild in Iceland.
However, collecting a kilogram of this fluffy material is very difficult.
Only 4 tons of down are produced worldwide annually.
So what makes eider down so expensive?
The light and warm down of eider is widely known throughout the world as a material that
is used to stuff pillows and blankets, as well as warm clothes for northerners, climbers
and astronauts.
Eider down is characterized by low thermal conductivity, elasticity and low weight, due
to which this down is superior to the down of other birds.
Eiderdown is the soft underfeather of the common eider, used to protect against arctic
conditions and icy seas.
During the breeding season, this down is naturally shed and female ducks use it to build their
nest.
This is where eiderdown collectors come in.
Many northern countries are busy collecting and processing down, but Iceland traditionally
takes the lead in this industry.
Already in the 15th and 16th centuries, Icelandic purveyors traded eider down with England.
This fluff was also harvested in Russia.
So, in the 16th century, Pomors prepared it on the island of Svalbard, and in the 17th
century, Russian merchants, among other goods, imported the so-called “bird down” to
Holland.
Each summer, about 400 eiderdown farmers across Iceland harvest it, either by taking a small
amount from each nest or by waiting for the birds to leave the area completely before
harvesting it.
Eider down is a natural product.
When eider ducks leave the nest, they leave fluff, so if it is not removed, it will simply
be blown away by the wind and become useless.
There are 240 islands in western Iceland in the Breidafjord area, 150 of which are nesting
eiders.
To collect fluff, collectors have to sail in small boats between the islands.
The nests are far enough apart that foragers have to search all the islands to find the
nests.
Finding a nest can be very difficult.
Sometimes it is hidden between rocks, among tall grass or tall plants, so down-gatherers
have to look very carefully to find all the nests.
In early May, eiders arrive on the islands to lay eggs for 28 days, hatch chickens and
disappear again into the expanses of the Arctic sea.
It does not take much time to build a nest, the birds arrive on land only just before
the start of breeding.
Female eiders often display a high degree of congenital philopatry when they return
to breed on the same island where they hatched.
Eiders nest in colonies, occasionally in single pairs, starting from the second or, rather,
the third year of life.
Usually the colony contains from 1200 to 1700 birds.
Birds avoid steep banks and sharp rocks, and in places with uneven terrain, crevices and
caves, they settle separately.
The colony can be located either right at the water's edge or a few hundred meters from
it, but it must necessarily have a gentle slope to the sea.
Eiders feed on mollusks and crustaceans, for which they dive to the seabed to a depth of
20 to 50 meters, using wings to move underwater.
In Iceland's harsh environment, the eggs need to be well protected.
The unique insulating ability of eider down helps keep the eggs warm for a long time while
the female is looking for food.
Down is collected in two stages: at the very beginning of incubation and after its completion,
when the broods leave the nests.
In the first case, this happens when the female leaves the nest and goes to feed, covering
the nest with down.
Farmers take advantage of this moment, seizing from 17 to 20 g of material.
Returning back, the eider immediately plucks a new portion of down from the chest, and
in case of its lack in the female, this is done by the drake.
Although this product is natural and ethically harvested, it is not particularly practical
to extract it.
Farmers have to independently find and manually collect down in each nest.
The nest is a hole 20-25 cm in diameter and about 10 cm deep, dug in peat and lined with
sparse vegetation and an abundant layer of gray down, which the female plucks from the
lower part of the chest and abdomen.
The nesting down that grows on the abdomen of the female differs in its structure from
the down on other parts of her body.
This down is longer, it has more grooves that cling to each other, which gives rise to the
famous elasticity of eider down.
It is for this reason that down is collected from nests and is never plucked from dead
birds.
One egg is laid per day, and a new portion of fluff is added in parallel - as a result,
by the end of the laying, the eggs are almost completely covered.
Ducklings appear within a few hours, and in the first days they stay near the nest, catching
mosquitoes.
Then the female leads the down-padded coats towards the sea, where they feed among the
coastal stones.
To increase the amount of down in Iceland and Norway, there are specially fenced off
colonies of common eiders, created for the industrial production of down from these birds,
which is a valuable export commodity.
In these countries, the common eider is not a domesticated bird like the hen, but the
penchant for permanent nesting sites and a relaxed attitude towards human presence have
made the process of collecting down a relatively uncomplicated operation.
As a rule, farms are arranged on small rocky islands not far from the mainland.
And although the process of obtaining down is laborious, much of the work of farmers
is aimed at ensuring the safety of ducks.
One of the steps is to protect the territory inhabited by the eider and try to attract
the eider to a certain territory.
In order to make the job of cleaning the fluff easier, farmers build nests for birds rather
than collect fluff from nests made by the ducks themselves.
Seaweed is used to build nests.
Fluff from such a nest is easier to clean.
Because eider ducks use grass and twigs to build their nests, which makes cleaning up
the fluff much more difficult.
Unlike industrial down, which is often a by-product of livestock or poultry farming and involves
the plucking of domestic geese, all eiders are found in the wild.
Farmers try to keep birds safe from predators such as foxes and minks, as well as from gulls
and crows that ravage eider nests.
To do this, farmers install frightening objects around the perimeter, such as bright flags
or rumbling metal objects.
All this scares off predators, otherwise it is very difficult to protect birds on the
ground.
In Russia, the collection of down, in particular, was carried out in the Kandalaksha Reserve
until the 1990s.
The collected fluff was handed over to the state.
Currently, the collection of down in the Kandalaksha Reserve is not carried out.
Once the fluff is collected, this is where the real work begins.
Up to 80% of the weight of the crop consists of various sticks, seaweed or larger feathers,
and all this must be removed.
First, the eiderdown is placed in an oven and heated at 120 degrees Celsius for at least
eight hours, removing all unwanted particles from it, killing germs and facilitating sorting.
The fluff then passes through several specially made machines, each of which sorts more and
more pieces from the total volume.
Within 20 minutes, the machine, using centrifugal force, cleans the fluff from straw and eggshells.
A large spinning machine separates the outer, even very small, feathers, but the only way
to be sure that each of these feathers is removed is to check the result of the work
manually.
Cleaning eiderdown by hand is quite tedious.
It takes an experienced person about four or five hours to get 1 kilogram of cleaned
down.
After all feathers have been carefully removed by hand, the down is ready for washing, pressing
and final drying.
For those few people who can afford to buy eider down, it is worth remembering how much
effort and work must be done before it reaches the consumer.
Compared to other downs, goose or duck, eider down is denser, more durable and has better
insulation.
Small notches in individual eiderdown feathers trap air and make it more resistant to wind.
Most of the eider down produced by King Eider is sold by companies for use in the market.
Some companies make their own pillows and blankets from down.
After cleaning, the down is sealed in bags and, together with the certificate of origin,
is sent to the enterprises for further processing.
Before production, the fluff is dried again.
The down is then checked again for impurities.
In the laboratory, down is tested for fat content.
In the manufacture of blankets, batiste material is used, containing 100 percent cotton.
This ultra-thin fabric is very light and breathable at the same time.
One of these blankets consists of 80 squares, each containing 6 grams of eider down.
With the help of lighting, the seams on the blanket are perfectly executed.
At the end of the work, the blanket is cleaned of the remnants of fluff, after which the
final quality control takes place.
The result is a final product that combines a thousand-year tradition of down harvesting
with modern production.
This miracle of nature weighs only 500 grams.
The lifespan of eider down is about 50 years.
No other duvet has such a long lifespan and requires so little maintenance.
This is the coziest and warmest blanket ever!
Eider ducks are strictly protected in Iceland.
Hunting them or selling their eggs is prohibited by law.
To prevent the eiders from being completely destroyed, they are under the close supervision
of the state.
Since 1970, Iceland has had a law requiring producers to certify all eider down sold.
In addition, in the manufacture of some products, such as blankets, pillows or clothing, manufacturers
must arrange for inspectors to check the quality and weight of the product before the product
reaches the consumer.
This strict system means that every eiderdown product in Iceland must be inspected by an
inspector.
Other countries have their own certification systems, but Iceland produces about 80% of
the world's eider down and control is very important here.
Done right, the end result is one of the warmest natural fibers in the world.
That's all.
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