I had a blast learning to spin deer hair last year. Eventually I got tired of using natural colors. So I looked around and found using a similar process that I use for dying chicken feathers works pretty well for deer hair as well. This fall I collected a handful of deer tails from other hunters as well as saved some white belly hair from deer my wife and I took. I used borax on them.

What you need:


Deer tail/hide to dye
Kool aid (unsweetened) color of your choice (20 cents for name brand, 12 cents for store brand)
vinegar (under $2 for half gallon)

I have been using quart sized mason jars because I can do more than one color at a time. Mix water, vinegar and the drink mix in the jar. The recipes I read called for 2 tbls per cup of water. Much to the chagrin of my wife, I feel recipes are just guidelines and just put what I thought was needed.



Put your deer tail in the jar and heat in a large pot with water. Use low heat. I usually go between 20 to 30 minutes.

Once the tail is the color you want (or the tail has used up all the color in the jar- a few times I have pulled the tail out leaving clear water). Rinse the tail and dry.

Sometimes the colors don't turn out like you expect... I was hoping for a darker purple on the one in this picture. The yellow, orange and red on the bottom were done with belly hair.



I think it goes without saying but be careful... those jars get hot when heated on the stove...

All said I have about a dollar in these tails (all of them not each). If you have feathers you want to dye do the same thing but put them in a microwave safe pan (I use pyrodex cake pan). Put it in for 2 minutes. Stir. Then another 2 minutes.

This is a few wild turkey and domestic chicken feathers I have done.



Hope this helps someone. I would love to hear how others do it also.

How funny--I was coming here to post up how to dye quills with Kool-Aid and found this! Good stuff.

I strip the barbs off of any feathers that would suit a size 12 or larger from my dun and grizzly capes. I don't heat it at all for quills, and they never lose their color. Don't know how that would work for hair since the quills have the holes left by the feather barbs to soak up the color. I take lime Kool-Aid and a little bit of purple and soak the quills overnight. The purple takes the edge off the bright green and makes it more of dull olive color. Unfortunately, I never measure how much purple I use, so it's a trial-and-error thing.