A while back, I posted my issues with goose eggs not hatching, and possibly my gander going sterile. Well, sometimes you find out what the real trouble was after you decide to cull them out and eat them. A bit of re-cap: trio of Pilgrims, 2 geese, 1 gander, nice hatch 2nd year, none 3rd and 4th, so we ate them. We suspected the gander had gone sterile, as at least one goose was still laying, and the gander was still mating. During slaughter, we found a large egg-shaped mass, no shell but solid and entire thing looked like hard-boiled egg yolk would look, in abdomen of "alpha" goose. "Omega" goose was fine. So with a little intuition and insightful thought, I came to this conclusion...the gander had chosen the "alpha" for his life-mate, so when she stopped laying, he stopped mating her, and also stopped mating the "omega" goose, loosing interest in her even though she was still laying, because he was more interested in wandering around foraging with his sweetheart. This is not my imagination at work, I actually watched this happening, only to realize later the dynamics of the whole thing. If I'd realized the "alpha" goose had her issue, I would have culled only her and kept the other 2. I now know to check for this condition,to save un-necessary culling. I understand that when a bird becomes an internal layer, it can't be fixed and she eventually dies from infection.