Thanks, it would've been better than seeing it suffer. One less will mean less competition for food for the other five poults, so I'm fairly sure the rest will plump up to a nice size.
I plan on letting mine free-range also, I've never raised a bird completely enclosed. I got mine sometime during the first week of April - the 6th (?), and mine are all males. So they have extra time and I have the benefit of them being males (usually larger than the females). I think that the Richland Co. fair is in August (again "?") so we'll see how they turn out.
Not really on topic but we had some Emben goslings (baby geese) hatch yesterday - Ma's birthday. Our Embdens are of the German type - slightly smaller with a different body conformation, larger beak than the English Embdens. I'll get some pictures tomorrow and go ahead and post them here.