As a beginning fly tier, it is easy to assume your fly tying materials are uniformly prepared and packaged for quality assurance. With marabou feathers, if they are packaged loose or strung together, I would (without sneezing or making a mess) spend a little time to check the quality of the feathers before purchasing. High quality marabou will be evident to you after awhile and the better brands will become evident. Here is a few comments by G Smolt at an outdoor forum discussing marabou quality:
“I just have one concept to add, and that is feather culling. The average bag of strung hackle and schlappen has very few high-quality quills in it, a lot of B and C quills, and a few duds that aren’t fit to use anywhere on a fly. Lots of folks grab the first feather their fingers touch and just start wrapping
Feathers need to be selected, not just grabbed willy-nilly.
I say this because the hackles on both the black bugger and the purple egg-sucker are far too short to be using on such a fly – the “fluffy” barbules at the head of the fly are a dead giveaway. Now, will this cause fish to not eat the fly? Of course not. Will this affect the way the fly looks, and perhaps skew the tier’s perceived ability to “tie the fly right”? Most certainly.
SELECT YOUR FEATHERS. Make sure they will be long enough to complete a wrapping task. Look for missing barbules, clips, or anything else that deem a feather a “cull”. Select for quill stiffness as well – proper quills will wrap, thick quills will break.
PREP YOUR FEATHERS. Pick off the fluffy barbules at the bottom of the quill, break the barbule hooks on schlappen and cheap hackle (velcro hooks work awesome for this), back-comb the quills to separate the barbules, and fold before you wrap.” Outdoors Directory Forum
SwittersB & Exploring 