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Whiting Farms- Genetic Fly Tying Feathers
A One Delta County staff member had an exciting opportunity to tour Whiting Farms, a renowned facility founded by Dr. Thomas Whiting. Whiting Farms, with three ranches in Delta County, employs 25 full-time and four part-time workers. The processing and shipping facility is located on Sawmill Mesa Road, a former mink farm that Dr. Whiting transformed into a poultry production center in 1992. During the tour, Dr. Whiting explained how he seized the opportunity to repurpose the mink farm as the mink industry in Colorado was declining due to global market issues. He has continually expanded and grown the facility for the past 33 years. The tour offered a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the meticulous process of preparing chicken capes and saddles to produce high-quality feathers for fly tying, a technique Dr. Whiting personally developed over decades. According to Dr. Whiting, Whiting Farms supplies approximately 90% of the world's fly-tying feather market. However, the exact details of this process remain a closely guarded secret.
Inside the shipping facility, you'll find shelves stocked with meticulously labeled and packaged feathers. They process orders from fly shops around the world. On the day of our tour, massive boxes were neatly stacked, filled with a staggering amount of feathers ready for shipment to various destinations like New York City, Denmark, Pennsylvania, Thailand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Cambodia, and Latvia, to name a few. Many of these orders reached five-figure quantities.
Whiting Farms operates year-round, harvesting four days a week and consistently producing high-quality poultry. Dr. Whiting mentions that their busiest season traditionally starts in the fall and continues through early April, but they're fulfilling orders throughout the year.
In the Spring 2011 issue of Fly Tyers Magazine, Tom Whiting received the magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to fly tying materials. The article described his work as setting the highest standard for hackle quality, and this remains true today.
Dr. Whiting is one of the foremost avian geneticists in the world and took the time to explain the backstory and history of the genetics of Whiting Farm’s exceptional poultry.
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