A process comprising the steps of: a) providing whole feathers in a non-chemically treated form; b) washing, and optionally disinfecting, the whole feathers as obtained from step a) with an aqueous liquid at elevated temperature, to obtain whole washed feathers; c) drying the whole washed feathers as obtained from step b) to obtain whole dried feathers; d) milling the whole dried feathers as obtained from step c), wherein either: (i) the process is for obtaining fibrillated fibres comprising keratin, and the milling is with a hammer mill using a plurality of rotating hammers to force the feathers against a curved grinding surface having raised teeth, wherein each rotating hammer has a hammer tip and the minimum clearance as a hammer tip passes over the grinding surface defines a grinding gap, wherein the grinding gap is from 1mm to 6mm, and whereby milled feather material is forced out of the mill through screen perforations by the action of the rotating hammers, whereby the screen perforations are substantially circular with a diameter of from 3mm to 10mm, so as to obtain a fibrillated fibre blend comprising both fibrillated feather barb material and fibrillated feather quills; or (ii) the process is for obtaining a powder comprising keratin, and the milling is with a mill having a grinding action so as to obtain powdered feather barb material together with whole feather quills, wherein the powdered feather barb material has a particle size distribution such that its particles are all sized within the range of from 50 to 850 μm; and wherein the process comprises separating the powdered feather barb material from the whole feather quills. a) providing whole feathers in a non-chemically treated form; b) washing, and optionally disinfecting, the whole feathers as obtained from step a) with an aqueous liquid at elevated temperature, to obtain whole washed feathers; c) drying the whole washed feathers as obtained from step b) to obtain whole dried feathers; d) milling the whole dried feathers as obtained from step c), (i) the process is for obtaining fibrillated fibres comprising keratin, and the milling is with a hammer mill using a plurality of rotating hammers to force the feathers against a curved grinding surface having raised teeth, wherein each rotating hammer has a hammer tip and the minimum clearance as a hammer tip passes over the grinding surface defines a grinding gap, wherein the grinding gap is from 1mm to 6mm, and whereby milled feather material is forced out of the mill through screen perforations by the action of the rotating hammers, whereby the screen perforations are substantially circular with a diameter of from 3mm to 10mm, so as to obtain a fibrillated fibre blend comprising both fibrillated feather barb material and fibrillated feather quills; or (ii) the process is for obtaining a powder comprising keratin, and the milling is with a mill having a grinding action so as to obtain powdered feather barb material together with whole feather quills, wherein the powdered feather barb material has a particle size distribution such that its particles are all sized within the range of from 50 to 850 μm; and wherein the process comprises separating the powdered feather barb material from the whole feather quills.