Porcupine Quills

What are Quills?

 

Quills are basically hairs hardened by a thick coat of keratin. They are hollow with a hard, shiny outside and a soft, pulpy inside - similar to the shaft of a feather.

A single porcupine can have over 30,000 quills on it’s body.

Quills are used as a defense mechanism by the creature. Contrary to popular myth, porcupines do not eject or "shoot" their quills, instead quills are released by contact or can be dropped by the animal shaking it’s body. The quills are loosely rooted in the muscle of the porcupine. Porcupines can regrow quills to replace lost ones.

Porcupines are actually born with quills, but at birth they are soft and begin to harden hours after birth, gaining full defensive strength within a few months.

Porcupine quills possess antibiotic properties. The quill is coated with a free fatty acid that is known to inhibit the growth of certain bacteria. This does not guarantee that a quill stick will not get infected however. It is posited that these properties evolved as a mechanism to help limit self-injuries to the porcupine.

Other animals that have sharp quills are; hedgehogs (OW), tenrecs (Africa) and echidna (Australia and New Guinea)

Two kinds of porcupines with different quills

  1. Old World Porcupine (Hystricidae) - Found in Europe, Africa and Asia - Quills are only found on it’s hind end, in hairless clusters - Quills are longer (typically around 20 centimeters/8 inches) and thicker but unbarbed

  2. New World Porcupine (Erethizontidae) - Found in North and South America - Quills are found from head to hind, amindst the soft hairs of it’s body - Quills are shorter and thinner but barbed with flat, backwards-facing barbs (~800 in the first 4mm of the quill)

 Due to the barbs, the New World quills area easier to insert into the skin and more difficult to remove

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Microscopic Pictures of the New World Porcupine Quill and it’s Barbs

 

Where/How to Acquire

Quills are harvested, cleaned and sold as a component of many Native American arts & crafts, as such they aren't difficult to purchase.

Quills can be harvested from porcupines either alive or dead. In many parts of the United States porcupines are considered pests and as such people are encouraged to trap or hunt them, once dead the quills can be harvested from the animal.

For those who choose arguably more humane methods, porcupines can be raised in captivity and the quills harvested from the animal while alive. The removal of quills does not harm the animal, in fact it encourages growth of stronger, new quills.

If you want to try your hand at harvesting porcupine quills yourself, be my guest, however I prefer to purchase them and allow someone else to do that hard work.

The best place, in my experience, to purchase them are via vendors on etsy.com. A simple query on etsy for “porcupine quills” will typically yields lots of different options, included ones dyed a multitude of bright colors.

 

Safety Considerations

Hygiene

Quills are not sterile - there is no way for them to ever be. Attempting to sterilize them in an autoclave will make them too brittle to use. Chemical sterilization agents will likewise breakdown the quills. The best we can achieve is CLEAN.

Allergies

In the above “What are Quills?” section we mentioned the antibiotic coating on the quills. Many humans are mildly allergic to this coating.

As such if this coating is not removed from the quills prior to piercing, a low-grade allergic reaction can be triggered. Typically this reaction only results in minor skin irritation for up to 72-hours.

These reactions are typically no more severe than an insect bite or a minor sunburn.

If the bottom has a history of allergic reactions to animal hair or dander, or a history of allergic anaphylaxis there is a higher risk of a more severe reaction.

To help mitigate risk, have Benadryl (pills and cream) on hand, if the bottom has a history of anaphylaxis ensure they have their EpiPen available.

Handling

While quills are not as sharp as hypodermic needles, they are still sharp and can stick yourself or others if not handled with care.

Accidental sticks will not always result in the quill becoming buried in the skin, engaging the barbs, but even without the barbs being engaged the stick is still unpleasant.

If dexterity is a concern, use of a pair of forceps or tweezers is recommended.

A good rule of thumb is to handle a quill like you would handle a hypodermic needle.

 

Prepping Quills for Play

Sort Them (My Sorting Criteria:)

  • Integrity (not broken, not mushy, etc)

  • Thickness (if the quill is too thin it may break will deploying it or removing it)

  • Overall Length (if the quill is too short it’ll be more difficult to deploy or remove)

  • Length of the Barb End (the dark/black end is the end with the barbs, being able to identify this end visually is important)

  • Aesthetics (if this is important to you, only keep the pretty ones)

Clean The Chosen Ones

  • Remove residual hair or other debris

  • (optional) Clip the stem on the opposite end of the quill (these things are pokey)

  • Soak in 90% rubbing alcohol for 30-45 mins

  • Dry on a cooling rack (like cookies) or a clean paper towel

Store Them

  • Once dry, place the quills in an airtight container for storage. My preferred storage method are these clear plastic bead tubes from Amazon.

Piercing with Quills

Quills can be used anywhere - nipples, clits, cocks, labia, etc.

I would recommend avoiding mucus membranes, areas like the tongue, inside the vagina, the ears, or inside the nose.

Quills, in my experience, are the most effective when you use them like you would a thumbtack, by pushing it straight into the skin.

The weaving or sewing method (similar to other play piercing) is possible, but most quills are tapered, and larger towards the middle, so the ability to do this safely is limited.

Prior to piercing with the quill, I like to clean the quill again with a disposable alcohol pad to kill any microbes that may have been introduced since the initial cleaning.

Once quills are in, the barbs hold them in the skin so they can be manipulated (twisted, flicked, pushed, pulled, etc.).

Trying to rotate the quill while in the skin can be especially painful as it forces the barbs under the skin to do additional trauma to the skin.

 

Post-Piercing

Removal

The barbs on the quill are designed to make the quill difficult to remove

A significant amount of force can be required to remove a quill once it is in the skin.

It is recommended to grab the quill as close to the skin as possible when removing it.

I keep a pair of hemostats in my kit for those quills that I can’t get a good grip on for whatever reason.

When you remove the quill, you will be breaking off the barbs in the bottom’s skin. The barb will either be expelled from the body as part of the natural skin-shedding process (which in healthy adults happens approximately every four weeks) or the white blood cells of the immune system will take care of them.

First Aid

After removal of the quill, treat the wounds like any other puncture wound: Stop the bleeding, clean, and treat with some antibiotic ointment and bandage.

Treat any itching or skin irritation at the piercing site with an anti-histamine (like Bendadryl).

If the allergic reaction escalates or persists after anti-histamine treatment, seek emergency medical help immediately.


Quill Disposal

It is NOT recommended to dispose of quills in a sharps container. It is recommended to only place medical/metal sharps in your disposable sharps container.

Since quills are not as rigid or as sharp as hypodermic needles, placing quills in a sealable and disposable vessel of some kind is acceptable. Sometimes I will simply break the quills into several smaller pieces with my fingers and then dispose of them bare in the trash.

As a natural material, quills can be buried in the ground, or destroyed via burning if desired.

Our intention is to prevent someone else from being pierced by the quill after we’ve disposed of it.




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