Squashy egg

[Yorky]

The girls seem to have settled in well, and have provided 2 eggs for the last 2 days after getting us used to one a day!!
But this mornings egg was soft, as if it didn't have a shell? It was quite orange too.
I've been feeding them a couple of handfuls of grit and shell twice a week - should this be daily? Is there anything else I can do to stop this happening again?
And will the egg be OK to use?

As we have no idea which hens have been laying part of me is worrying that this odd egg is a first from one of them, and is indicative of a problem?

sometimes the first eggs that they lay have no shell. sometimes when ours are really old they lay ones without shell on too. its great that they are still laying this late in the year. ours stopped a couple of weeks ago and wont restart again until the spring. you are doing all the right things with grit and shell so suspect it could just be a one off from a chicken that hasn't laid before. don't worry unless you start to see it happening all the time is my advice.

Thank you for the quick response mummy, exciting to think that one of the girls might have just got off the starting blocks!

Give them access to grit daily - I tend to throw it on the floor so they can have a poke around for it. Baked egg shell goes into their food every day. Have you got poultry spice? It's a good idea to give this to them regularly, especially during moult.

One of our girls lays softies on a regular basis, she's a bit older than the other two. She also hasn't laid an egg for 2 months (she's been going through a horrendous moult this year) but the other two still lay daily.