Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am interested in doing a project about the best way to clean birds affected by BP's recent oil spill on the coast. I was thinking about using 3 feathers, and dipping them in oil, then cleaning them by using dishwashing liquid, laundry detergent, and hand soap (and a sponge). However, I have a lot of kinks to work out in this idea.
I don't know what kind of oil I should use to simulate crude oil. (If I could get crude oil, that would be great, but I wouldn't know where to buy it. Do they sell that stuff to the general public, in small amounts?) Do you have any suggestions on this? Maybe a bi-product of crude oil, that's somewhat similar? It would have to be sold somewhere accessable, and not be too pricey. Would motor oil be a good substitue?
Also, the feathers would be a problem. Where could I get feathers? What kind of bird should they be from, or does it even matter? Is eBay reliable, or would shipping take too long? Also, how much should I spend on feathers?
Finally, the control group. I'm thinking about using warm water and soap to wash the feathers, not just the soap. Does this mean my control group should be washed in just warm water, or stay covered in oil? And should I wash each feather under a certain time limit, or just until I get the feather clean? How much of each kind of soap should I use? And should I use a set amount?
Do you know how I could measure my results? Would it be possible to make a scale, or chart? Or would it just be observations?
Overall, do you think my idea is doable? Would it be a useful project? This is just an idea, after all. I could talk to my teacher and modify it, if you have any suggestions. And sorry for all the questions, but if you could answer them, it would really help me out.

Hi!
Very pertinent experiment to conduct, certainly very useful! For starters, you might want to check out a similar type of experiment at this website - just to give you some ideas:

http://www.amsa.gov.au/marine_environme ... ercise.asp

So what's interesting about this particular experiment is that they actually simulate crude oil instead of buying direct crude oil, which is not only quite dangerous, but most likely also quite hard to obtain.

In terms of feathers, this website (among many others) might be a place to start:
http://www.clearcreektrading.com/store/ ... -Feathers/

Also remember to check out the ScienceBuddies online guide on how to design your project - remember to control for as many variables as you can so that they don't introduce any innate bias into your project. In terms of analyzing your results, there are definitely lots of quantitative ways to measure your observations, whether it be charting how much oil is still left on the feathers at the end of the cleaning process. Best of luck!

Just to add to the advice you have already received--by and large, feathers are pretty similar across the evolutionary spectrum. Thus, it does not matter what feathers you use. Craft stores usually sell bags of chicken feathers (often dyed), and I think they're pretty cheap. Definitely do not buy feathers from native species on Ebay, since they are protected by law and you could be arrested. Chicken feathers, on the other hand, are perfectly legal to possess.

You might try creating a scale of cleanliness if you can't actually do measurements. For example, a 0 would be no oil, whereas a 5 would be covered in oil.

I might also suggest that you look up the ingredients in soap. One big issue when washing birds is that the soap(s) used have to be non-toxic. Otherwise, the birds will eat a lot of the soap when they preen their feathers after they have been washed and die from that rather than from the oil.

Thank you so much for the advice!