I am glad to find this thread too, (even though I found it whilst desperately looking for someone to save my cockerals.)
I took some time and read thru/skimmed this thread and just enjoyed the conversations and comments. It seems like so many ppl on BYC are from up north somewheres, its nice to see so many ppl from Texas here on this thread.
I am looking forward to attending the chicken show at A&M in January and am just having fun with my chickens!
Once I sort out my abundance of cockerals, we will be back to chickenbliss. We had good laying last winter and used no heat or lights. The roost area is well ventilated, but also small so their body heat does a great job keeping them warm and I added tons of extra pine shavings when we had that hard freeze last Jan. I too also saw a drop in eggs during the worst heat of August.
This is our 2nd year having chickens, so I am still in my honeymoon phase- I love it!!!
Mary