Writing this in the year 2020 I can't help but spend a minute or two lamenting the current quality of CDC available from various vendors. In a word it's mediocre at best. In my opinion it has been of declining quality since the mid 1990s. The feather on the left is one of the few I have from some old stock. The sad looking thing on the right, while not all in a bulk pack are like this, far too many are. Oh, there's a lot more selection of colors if you think that matters, but the floatation, flexibility and over all quality are bad and getting worse.

The solution to flotation seems to be buying quarts of fumed silica from boat builders or, if you don't care about the expense, the commercial floatants in those little bottles.

I'm guessing, as I'm no expert on feather processing, that the brittleness is due to over bleaching in preparation for dyeing that is the cause. The stems (rachis) of the feathers are brittle causing difficulties in winding them about the hook shank. In an attempt to counter act this I often resort to placing a small folded square of a moistened paper towel into the baggie before sealing the bag. After a day or two the stems seem more flexible. You must be careful to not use too much water which will cause other problems.

Fortunately, the missing barbules on the stems can be ignored for the most part as IOBOs are all tolerant of using pretty crappy stuff at least as far as the fish are concerned; to catch a fisherman, however, it's nice to have some good quality feathers.

Of course, if you have duck shooting friends you can harvest the very best available with only one possible drawback, at least for old eyes, that being the color which will always be dark and more difficult to see. Offer to buy them some shells.