Some suggestions for cartons...check with local restaurants, the small mom & pop type as they may buy eggs where ever they are cheapest. I have one lady that, as long as I agree to pick them up every Monday morning, I can have all the cartons she's emptied for the week. And it never hurts to take a few dozen eggs as a small token of appreciation.
On that same note, if you want to sell eggs, try some of the local eateries. We live in the suburbs but very near to the ranches. My daughter works for the local ranch vet and has lunch at the cafe a few doors down. They would take up to 6 dozen eggs each week if we had them. Ranchers know what they are eating and appreciate having nice farm fresh eggs in the morning. The cafe owner has even passed along some of the nice comments from customers about how orange our yolks are, that they haven't seen eggs that big in a long time, and how good our eggs taste.
Also, mention your hens in conversation the next time you are sitting in the dentist's or doctor's waiting room and see if any of the staff seems interested. Our dentist's office buys 4 dozen per month and pays us $1 extra (we normally charge $2/doz) because we deliver the eggs on our way to work / school (phone call the day before to be sure they have the money collected and a space in the fridge) and I've explained what we feed them and how the hens get to be out in the pasture all day eating organic greens, getting fresh air and sunshine. They would like to get eggs twice per month so my daughter has invested in some additional chicks that should be producing by Aug / Sept.
Both my husband and I work at schools and teachers / staff often want farm fresh eggs. If you have a rooster find out if any of the teachers hatch out eggs as a class project. But a lot of our egg sales during the school year go to our colleagues at school...easy delivery, just take them to work. When school is out for the summer I see the neighbors outside more so often they will ask to buy eggs. And I also use that time when egg sales are slow to give away some to the food pantry at the local church, thank you gifts to those who help us (secretary who saves paper shreds for our bedding, rural mail carrier, neighbor who helps us with little projects or lends a tool to us, ...), or sometimes just a family that is down on their luck and needs a hand up once in a while.
My daughter and I always carry some of our egg payment envelopes in our purses. The envelope has a little picture of chickens at the top, some fun nutritional facts about eggs, and a place for the buyer's name and cost at the bottom. So we can "sign up" new customers whenever someone asks about our chickens. The first dozen is always free, if you return the payment envelope it is understood that they want to buy eggs from us and they are put into the rotation.
For neighbors and co-workers they know to look for the envelope in their egg carton and return it to us (with payment) in our work cubby or, for the neighbors...a basket hanging by our front door. They don't get back in the egg waiting rotation until we receive payment for the previous dozen. We keep a magnetic clip on the fridge and when a payment envelope is received we log the money into raizin's Excel spreadsheet (find it here on the forum), money goes nto the "chicken feed" jar, envelope goes to the back of the pack on the fridge clip.
(It also helped that a Whole Foods Market moved in to a town nearby and they charge $2.50-5 per dozen for "cage free" and all organic eggs...acquaintances realize they can have ours for $2/doz...AND make friends with the guy in the produce dept there and he gives me all the castoffs I can handle for my flock...organic!...and since I can't show my appreciation for the young man that helps us in the produce dept by taking him eggs...not allowed since the store sells similar product......I'm always sure to take him some homemade baked goods when I pick up each week)
Honestly, I let my daughter buy some silkies. I understand that they don't lay normal sized eggs and that they aren't prolific egg layers. But I figure that's the only way I'M ever going to eat eggs again!
Egglayers ad silkies coming next week....YEA!!!!!!!!!
