The development of new fertilizers from agricultural and industrial wastes could be both environmentally-friendly and low-cost. High-value utilization of chicken feather (CF) and cellulose (Cell) has always been a challenging endeavor. A multi-functional zinc-rich fertilizer was developed by cross-linking CF and Cell with KOH/H2O/CO(NH2)2 (KOH, 1.5mol/L;CO(NH2)2, 0.12g/mL) being a composite solvent, which was named Cell-CF. The main procedures were: the CF was firstly gone through alkaline hydrolysis in the composite solvent with ratio of solid to water of 1∶10 at temperature of 75℃ for 2h, then the polypeptide solution was obtained and cooled at -12℃;secondly, the Cell (0.06g/mL) was immersed into the polypeptide solution and the Cell-CF hydrogel was obtained after high-intensity stirring for 30min;thirdly, dilute H2SO4 solution was used to adjust the pH value of Cell-CF gel to 6.5;fourthly, ZnSO4·7H2O was added to the gel followed by constant stirring of 1h;finally, the above gel was prilled with a 1cm×1cm×1cm cubic mould and dried at 60℃ in oven. Chemical analyses of the granulated Cell-CF fertilizer showed that it contained nitrogen of 150.6mg/g, potassium of 136.7mg/g and zinc of 13.9mg/g. Water sorption measurement indicated that Cell-CF had good swelling capacity in water. Hydrostatic nutrients release experiment revealed that Cell-CF could slow down the release of potassium and zinc into water. The formation mechanism of cross-linking structure of Cell-CF was investigated by FTIR and X-ray. It was demonstrated that the crystal structures of CF and Cell were destroyed after being treated with the composite solvent, and there was hydrogen bond interaction between the polypeptide and Cell. After the Cell-CF was immersed into water for 8h, strong fluorescence signal was detected from the crossed Cell-CF while there was no fluorescence around Cell-CF, meaning that the polypeptide was not dissolved in water and the molecular interactions between Cell and CF were strong. Photoelectron spectroscopy results showed that zinc was chelated with the functional groups of Cell-CF. Soil incubation experiment and pot experiment showed that Cell-CF could release high bio-available zinc in a long term.