I was afk at my creeper farm for about 20-45 minutes, went back to my villagers and there were 13 extra villagers, i susspect they only stopped breeding because they ran out of food, all of my current villagers (35 total) had unlinked from their workstations and from their beds, I havent been able to relink any of them even after killing the extra villagers (some of which had assigned themselves to the workstations previously owned by my villagers)

I suspect all my villagers had delinked from their beds, prompting the breeders to breed more to fill them, but i cant confirm that was the original issue.

where my creeper farm is located, its likely the villagers were outside of the loaded chunks, but the beds AND breeders were inside of loaded chunks. unsure if that was a factor.