I gotcha now. Those little 'hairs' will get ruffled up. Their surfaces act kind of like velcro. The back side of one hangs onto the front side of the next one, and so on. They hold themselves together. If they do get mussed up and won't straighten back out, you run your hand along the feather and they'll usually just zip right back up. If they don't, that's when you fire up the teapot and run them through the steam. A couple of quick passes and they're good as new.

Even when they are kinda ratty, feathers will still shoot great.