[Dujon] Indeed, I'm sure that in your neck of the woods ants will be particularly efficient at cleaning up. I agree feathers are a bit different, but they must be destroyed fairly quickly if only because otherwise we'd be up to our necks in them. Also they are pretty much pure keratin which, despite its toughness, is none the less protein and so crying out to be recycled. I'm now into speculation, but I would suspect insects & bugs are likely to be the cleaning crew and will reprocess the feathers into chitin etc.
Surely there's someone in the morniverse who can add a bit more scientific rigour at this point.

Big fleas have little fleas,
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so, ad infinitum.
The_Siphonaptera

[pen] My old dad used to recite that one to me..

[Softers] Mine too. Is it a dad thing?

When dads recite cute poems
To their children oh so clever
They then recite them to their own
And on and on for ever.