My first eggs??!

So I hatched some coturnix latish (in august I believe) last summer. they're housed in a pen outside. They were about 6 weeks old in Septermber hit so I didn't really get the opportunity to get any eggs, so from September until about two or three weeks ago I put Christmas lights up in their coop in an attempt to coax some eggs out of them. About two or three weeks ago I turned the lights off so I could use the electricity to keep their water from freezing. Today I went out to the coop (after not going out there for about a week) and found seven eggs, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. Also I didn't find any little eggs like I should get when a hen starts laying. I'm thrilled, but we're only getting about 10 hours of daylight. The roosters haven't been crowing or anything. Just out of no where these seven eggs pop up. So my question is why do I have eggs all the sudden and how do I keep them laying?

 

So should I put a surge protector out there and put them back on? Why could it be that I had the lights on for 3 months and they never laid anything, but 3 weeks after I turn it off they start laying? Is it possible the lights were stressing them out and when it turned off they got back to normal? because it seems really weird to me that they never laid while the lights were on.