First Smoked Chicken

Hello everyone, I joined a couple days ago but I've been lurking here for a few months! I love BBQ and enjoy cooking a lot. Last week I picked up my first smoker and today for my birthday I tried my hand at my first smoke. Started with something easy and cheap, a whole chicken.

I didnt brine or anything just defrosted, rinsed out of the package and dried the skin off. Lifted the skin up and rubbed a mixture of butter and my seasoning underneath the skin. On top of the skin I used the same rub.

Loaded up the smoker with about 5-7 lbs of Stubbs briquettes and lit up 5-6 in a chimney and placed on the one side of the pile. Took about 45 minutes to get to temp and then I got the chicken on. I really battled wind gusts, around 30 mph+, all day and this killed my temps each time dropping about 7-10 degrees each time. Right in the middle of the cook I got done to around 240 from multiple wind gusts and my coals seemed like they were going out so I fired up another half chimney.

I did get temps back up and finished in just over 3 hours 165 in the breast. Sorry for the long post but it was a ton of fun! I have pics but they are massive and I don't know how to shrink them so I included a link to the imgur album!

Full Album

Thanks everyone for the comments, temps were definitely a struggle! Looking to do some beef ribs sometime soon.

Also, I did use some wood chunks but not enough I think. I've read that chicken takes on smoke really easily and I didn't want to overdue it. The legs and wings had a good smoke flavor, but the breasts you couldn't tell. I think next time I will try to use some more chunks or get some splits of wood!

Thanks for the replies everyone, it definitely won't be my last I have two more whole birds in the freezer. What is the benefit of removing the backbone, does it cook more evenly?