Whiting Farms Hackle

There has been an unprecedented increased demand for long saddle hackle feathers in the fashion hair industry for hair extension's made from the great fly tying feathers. Due to this unanticipated demand Whiting farms and all fly shop businesses were not prepared for this outside demand for fly tying feathers. They are trying to increase production; however, it takes awhile for the egg to hatch and the bird grow and then be harvested and dyed in various colors. The Olympic Grading System Whiting’s Olympic Grading System was developed to consistently and uniformly grade capes and saddles across all product lines. Whiting Farms does not grade from harvest to harvest or “batch to batch”. We do not grade to push up or down pelts to meet certain sales requirements or financial obligations. We do not grade to meet consumer demand. Our grading methodology remains consistent through out the year and is independent of any bias that would skew the true quality of the pelt. When grading our pelts, one rule-of-thumb always stands true: the quality of the feather is always consistent. What does this mean? It means that each dry fly feather has a supple quill, void of twist, contains dense barbing and is greater than 85% web-free. If a pelt doesn’t meet this core criteria, the pelt is never sold in retail. Making the Grade How is a pelt determined to be a bronze, silver, gold or better? Once the quality of the feather is determined to pass the grade (see above), several factors are observed to categorize each pelt. In summary, a few key elements quickly raise the value of a pelt from bronze, to silver to gold. Factors such as useable feather length, uniformity of feather length, barb stiffness, size range in the entire pelt, stem condition, feather quantity, consistent coloration, and more are all looked at to determine grade. In all, there are more than 25 elements that are taken into consideration when grading a pelt. It’s a good bet that if a pelt is densely feathered, offers a wide size range and the feathers have long, usable dry fly portions, the pelt will grade out rather high, maybe even a gold or better. Recent studies on Whiting dry fly saddles reveal that as the grade is higher, more flies can be tied from the pelt. This makes the cost-per-fly decrease for higher grades. For the volume tier, this is great news, but for the hobby tier, cost per fly is less of a concern. In this case a silver or bronze grade saddle may be the hobby tier’s best choice.Hook Size Ranges of All Grades of Whiting and Hebert/Miner Rooster Capes

There has been an unprecedented increased demand for long saddle hackle feathers in the fashion hair industry for hair extension's made from the great fly tying feathers. Due to this unanticipated demand Whiting farms and all fly shop businesses were not prepared for this outside demand for fly tying feathers. They are trying to increase production; however, it takes awhile for the egg to hatch and the bird grow and then be harvested and dyed in various colors.