Excessive Laying

[Oob Child]

I have three female quail in one cage, and they are all adults. Two of them lay and egg a day at around the same time, but the other one lays every 12 hours, occasionally laying an extra one in between that time. Usually she lays it at night, but sometimes she sometimes lays another daily. Her eggs are a feeble 8-10g usually, but she laid a big one about mid day today. It weighs the same as the other birds eggs.
Today I got 4 eggs. One from early in the morning, another 2 at their normal time, and another from Hercules an hour after the others that have laid.
Sometimes I get even 5 eggs a day, the extra ones or the small ones being in a nest-like structure in their wood shavings.
All of the eggs are top quality, with strong shells and a normal single yolk.

The main suspect is my mini egg/ unorganized layer, Hercules. She's always been laying undersize eggs at random times, but it's recently become more often. The extra egg that was almost normal size today had the same pattern as Spot's eggs, but I had already watched her lay her egg and collected it that day. Spot never lays extra eggs. The other female, George, lays the same pattern eggs on time every day, no matter where she is.

Could this be more than it seems? I would let them go broody on the nest looking thing, but the eggs aren't fertile as there is no male. I'm planning on adding what I think to be a male in with what I think to be another female on Wednesday.

I'm not worried, just incredibly curious. Why is this bird laying so often?!??

 

[Nabiki]

That doesn't sound good to me. She's a new layer, so she may settle down in the next few weeks. If she doesn't, she may live a mostly normal life, but she may have a shorter lifespan than normal.