First time breeding question

I am trying to breed my ball pythons for the first time. I have 1.1 66% het pieds. Figured for my first time that this wasn't a bad pairing. Well my girl had gone off food for a month and had been locking regularly with the male. And she was getting big. About 2 weeks ago she stopped locking with the male, even tho he still seemed interested, and I was hopefull. But last week she ate a hopper rat, and so I am not very hopefull anymore. But than why has she stopped locking with the male? Any thoughts. Here is a pic of them together.

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...4/IMG_4728.jpg

She hasn't lost any weight when she was off her food, if anything she got bigger.

She could still be building if you haven't seen an ovulation yet. Sometimes they do take a break from breeding, maybe if you kept them apart for 5 days or a solid week then reintroduce them they might start again.

I will try that. Thank you.