Sooo...How many eggs are Coturnix quail supposed to lay a day?

[Dearbrea]

I have (2) 10 week old Coturnix hens and one roo in my 3’x6’ deep litter style cage. The hens just started laying yesterday. Yesterday we got 1 egg. That’s fine, that makes sense.

Today, we got 5 eggs. It definitely wasn’t laid yesterday because I cleaned out the cage yesterday and it was definitely egg-free. I have questions.

1. Is this normal? I’ve read they lay about 1 a day.
2. Am I doing something that could be causing this?
3. Is laying this much putting too much stress on their little bodies?

 

[CindyinSD]

That's weird. They may on occasion seem to lay two a day because the cycles may be a little bit shorter than 24 hours, but five in one day from three birds seems like a lot. It could happen, but what're the odds? (I'm assuming the "rooster" to be female--they can be a challenge to sex correctly unless they're an autosexing variety. Has s/he crowed yet?)

And let's be honest--part of me thinks that either way, you somehow missed an egg and/or maybe just spaced it out and skipped a day gathering them...

 

[Dearbrea]

I have (2) 10 week old Coturnix hens and one roo in my 3’x6’ deep litter style cage. The hens just started laying yesterday. Yesterday we got 1 egg. That’s fine, that makes sense.

Today, we got 5 eggs. It definitely wasn’t laid yesterday because I cleaned out the cage yesterday and it was definitely egg-free. I have questions.

1. Is this normal? I’ve read they lay about 1 a day.
2. Am I doing something that could be causing this?
3. Is laying this much putting too much stress on their little bodies?

My roo mates with the 2 hens, is very rust colored, and definitely produces foam. I’m pretty sure he’s a boy. For the eggs though, I’m finding all of the eggs in about the same general area, so I would be pretty surprised if I just didn’t see them. 2 eggs in a day would be make sense, but one of the hens had to lay 3. Only think I can think is that they both laid 2 today, but a hen laid one last evening after I checked their cage and I just found it in the morning.

That seems close together in time though.

 

[CindyinSD]

@muddy75 @Kiki @RUNuts

 

[Anorakei]

IIRC their maximum lay rate is 1 egg every 18h so if 36h passed between cleaning the cage and discovering the eggs the next day it's theoretically possible for one hen to have produced 3 eggs. Probably some kind of fluke.

 

[muddy75]

My roo mates with the 2 hens, is very rust colored, and definitely produces foam. I’m pretty sure he’s a boy. For the eggs though, I’m finding all of the eggs in about the same general area, so I would be pretty surprised if I just didn’t see them. 2 eggs in a day would be make sense, but one of the hens had to lay 3. Only think I can think is that they both laid 2 today, but a hen laid one last evening after I checked their cage and I just found it in the morning.

That seems close together in time though.

as with other birds, new layers can be a bit irregular....i think your theory is correct that the 1 laid 2nd after you collected and the other 2 laid 2 each......the egg cycle doesn’t go any faster, the first egg just stayed in longer. it should be no more than the occasional occurrence and you should notice less eggs day or 2 before an anomaly such as this

 

[Nabiki]

My roo mates with the 2 hens, is very rust colored, and definitely produces foam. I’m pretty sure he’s a boy. For the eggs though, I’m finding all of the eggs in about the same general area, so I would be pretty surprised if I just didn’t see them. 2 eggs in a day would be make sense, but one of the hens had to lay 3. Only think I can think is that they both laid 2 today, but a hen laid one last evening after I checked their cage and I just found it in the morning.

That seems close together in time though.

Just because you find the eggs in the same spot every day doesn't mean they were laid in the same spot every day. Quail will move the eggs to their preferred place. I haven't actually caught mine at it, but I've seen eggs in one place during the day and then they were all in the "nest" in the evening when I went out to collect them.

 

[Dearbrea]

as with other birds, new layers can be a bit irregular....i think your theory is correct that the 1 laid 2nd after you collected and the other 2 laid 2 each......the egg cycle doesn’t go any faster, the first egg just stayed in longer. it should be no more than the occasional occurrence and you should notice less eggs day or 2 before an anomaly such as this

Ok that makes sense. There were no eggs out there this morning, so it had to have been a weird timing thing.