Erek Vaehne suggests that feathers might be suitable for making clothes for islanders:

“FEATHERS:  Chicken feathers are composed mostly of keratin, the same kind of protein found in wool. The researchers are specifically interested in their barbs and barbules, the stringy network that makes up the fluffy parts of the feather, which may have a similar feel on the skin as wool. “More than 4 billion pounds of chicken feathers are produced worldwide per year, about 50 percent of the weight of which is made of the barbs,” Yang said. The researchers investigated the physical properties of these filaments and found they possessed a sturdy honeycomb architecture containing tiny air pockets, which make them extremely lightweight and resilient. They could possibly serve as an improvement over wool due to their low cost, light weight and excellent heat and sound insulation, Yang said. However, he added they are not ready to make fibers from chicken feathers yet.”

Simon Erstwhile Jones sits in a small shed on his family farm, chewing feathers. He has been doing this for some years now, and if he ever stops or leaves, no one else sees him do so. If the pile of feathers runs low, he becomes agitated and starts to assume his Owl Man form. To stop this from happening, a team of children take it in turns to gather feathers for him. Fortunately, the feather chewing is a slow process, and chicken feathers are usually in good supply.

He chews the feathers carefully, taking them one at a time. When he is done, he spits them out again. For most of that first year of chewing, his family simply provided buckets for him to spit his outpourings into, and then emptied those soggy remnants into the midden.

Temerity Jones is the person responsible for inventing the second stage of the process. There is now a small and less slovenly shed close to where Simon Erstwhile Jones sits and chews. In that second shed, buckets of chewed feathers are emptied out, and there, Temerity hammers them. It is an intense process, involving not only the chewed feathers, but Temerity’s famous seaweed tonic – that never knowingly proved useful in any other scenario. The feathers are beaten into flatness. The tonic is applied, and the feathers are beaten again.

What results is a solid sort of fabric that you would not voluntarily wear against your skin. It does keep the rain out though, and repels insects, and people. And chickens. Chickens most especially.