King Quail Hen laying eggs again (and showing signs of going broody) while still caring for babies?

[MageofMist]

So, it seems Speckles has gone crazy with the fact that adorable fuzzy things come out of the eggs if she sits on them long enough, as I am pretty sure she isn't meant to be laying eggs yet until after she chases the babies away when they are old enough!

The babies are still fuzzy and just getting their pin feathers on their wings, when I heard a fast paced "chachachacha" sound come from the cage... A sound she makes when sitting on eggs. I looked and found her in a nest (one of the two she has) with all her chicks under her and 2 random eggs in there that were not in there yesterday.

Speckles is the only mature female in that cage with her mate Rex. Unless the babies turned Rex from a he into a she, those eggs are Speckle's eggs.

She did take 3 tries to successfully incubate her eggs and is still taking care of her chicks despite showing signs of going egg-broody again.

 

[DK newbie]

I find that it varies a lot how quickly the hen starts laying again. Mine has a couple of eggs now as well, her chicks are around 12 days old. That's probably the earliest she's started laying yet, but I don't worry about it.
Even if she does go broody when she has a full nest, the babies don't really need her. They can find food and water on their own and should they need heat, they have each other, their father - and I suspect the mother would still allow them in the nest.
Don't think she'll go broody before they've stopped going under her though - it seems to me that the act of chicks hiding in their feathers is what stops the hens from being broody when they hatch a clutch, so it seems unlikely that they can go broody if they already have chicks hiding under them. Time might prove me wrong though

 

[MageofMist]

They hatched on last Monday, so they are about a week old now! XD Mine started earlier than yours!

She tried sitting on the eggs again, but the baby quail were being silly and weren't going into the box, so mama quail came out to sit on them with Rex.

There are 7 chicks... Somewhere buried in the parents feathers.