Murderer

About a week ago something killed the only gosling of one of my geese. Spex had sat on 2 eggs for about a month and somewhere around the 11th or 12th of this month one of the eggs hatched. The other egg did not hatch and she threw it out of the nest so it must have been rotten. She was a first timer so she wasn't extremely good at being a mother but she got better quickly. Then one morning it happened. I had shown the little gander to dad early that morning and he had been just fine. An hour or two later I finished playing my music and went outside to check on Spex. She and her mate, Sondwodzoe, where standing in the little shelter that is by the front door of our house and is where they had made their nest and where acting very agitated. I could not find the gosling in the shelter no matter where I looked. I came out of the shelter for a minute and saw something yellow laying on the ground by a mud puddle about 10 feet away. It was the gosling, laying on his back by the puddle -- dead. About 10 minutes later it started to rain. I did not know what could have killed Spex's only gosling, but I wasn't going to take any chances with the other 5 so I locked Comet, King, and the 5 goslings up in the hen house. I also went and caught Spex, who was still sitting in her shelter just as she had been when she had a gosling to sit on, and put her in the hen house with Comet and the goslings. I figured that since Spex was programmed to take care of goslings at that time then I might as well put her with some goslings to take care of. When I checked on her an hour or so later she had several of her mother Comet's goslings under her wings.
Now, over a week later, Spex seems to have pretty much adopted her mother's goslings. Both Comet and Spex are busy taking care of the 5 goslings now. Spex seems to be pretty content too, as she has goslings to care for and guard. I am very glad that I had more goslings around that she could help with, and that their mother was so receptive to her help. Otherwise I don't know what I would have done with Spex, as she is programmed to care for goslings at this time, even if she does't have one any more.