How to remove pigment from feathers?

Helping my child do a school science experiment to compare feather pigments using electrophoresis. Need help separating the feather from the pigment. Do you know of a solvent that will work? Thanks!
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Not an easy proposition

I was hoping someone with greater knowledge than I would answer this in great detail because I am too lzy to look up the data in appropriate journals. First it would be nice to know what level of high school this is. Electrophoresis is a technique about 35 years old but is is still a bit advanced for a project that your mom has to help you with (MY mom helped in 8th grade but I wanted no part of her help in 9th)
From what I can remember, bird pigments in general are beta-carotenoids, but I am not sure exactly what would dissolve out only the pigments and not other complex compounds within feathers. The only readilly dissolvable pigment in bird feathers I am aware of is in the group called Turacos, and is a copper based pigment,called turacin, which has a magenta color. Any
basic solution (PH higher than 7) dissolves out the pigment almost instantly. If you dip a feather in ammonia it bleeds REAL fast. The other pigments are much more resilient in resisting dissolution. Mammal pigments dissolve very fast in comparison.
From what I remember of eletrophoresis though, a mixture is placed inside a column of a gel about the middle. Then electrodes are set in both ends and allowed to run voltage for a period of time. The compounds would move within the column based on their charge. I would imagine you could just gring up feathers with a mortar and pessel and place in the gel and see what happens. You also could simply try some sort of paper chromatography.
Hopefully someone else on this site has better answers.

Thanks. How can she learn more re: paper chromatography?

Thanks so much for your help. She will try the ammonia. My daughter is in an advanced 7th grade science class. Can you tell us where she can read and learn more about paper chromatography?

another question-what kind of ammonia?

Which type of ammonia do you suggest? She had a bit of success using lye, but ends up with a blue dye in with the feather pigments.

Here is some other info

Here is a couple links on pigments. I searched on Google with "feather pigment Alan Brush" (Alan Brush is a feather pigment researcher).

http://www.clede.com/Articles/outdoors/waxwing.htm the cedar waxwing study was a result of specimens here initially.

http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/1996Jun/msg00039.html

http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/1995Mar/msg00337.html

Forum on Dinosaur colors which tow of the above came from
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=+site:www.cmnh.org+alan+brush+feather+pigment

http://www.aces.edu/dept/hilllab/52.pdf

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/ornithology_bird_biology/64722

http://portalproductions.com/h/iridescent.htm

And there are many other articles on the web.

Concerning paper chromatography

Here is a link to a couple web pages on paper chromatography. Just use powdered feathers similar to the ink examples.
http://www.yesmag.bc.ca/projects/paper_chroma.html

http://chemscape.santafe.cc.fl.us/chemscape/catofp/chromato/paper/paper.htm

http://www.buildingrainbows.com/CA/lesson/lessonid/1013034045

There are many more references indexed by google.