Hi Helix,
Thanks so much for posting, generating flat cards and using my material with an alpha does give me the feathers I am after but the problem lies with the texturing. Each card is being given separate uv's which isn't what I am after.
I am looking for the cards to utilize the same uv's the hair does when you plug in the texture map to drive the color. Attached is what you get. When you use just hair you can see the colors are accurate to the base texture.