Can a female breeder not eat all season?

[Ash]

I've heard that breeding females will start pounding food at some point during the season. My 07 female hasn't eaten since December last year, and I've been offering food every two weeks. (I feed once weekly when she's eating normally). She shed for the first time since then this week, but still doesn't want food.

She hasn't lost weight, (she's ~ 1650 grams) but she looks thinner than I've been expecting. I can feel lumps in her. Is she going to slug out? Also, was that shed likely the pre-ovulation shed?

[Drew87]

I have some females that will eat all the way up till the OV. Some just shut down and dont eat till they lay eggs.

[Annarose15]

I have two females breeding this season. Both of them have taken one small rat since they started in December, but have not shown any interest aside from that. My smaller girl just laid her first clutch, and big girl is due any day now, so it seems to have worked fine for them. I didn't see any weight loss, either, until my girl dropped a 327g clutch of 3 eggs.

[Luke Martin]

I've been breeding for about 8 years. For the first 4 years or so as soon as I dropped temps for breeding season I'd stop feeding the females until they had (or for sure weren't going to have) eggs. I'm not sure if it was because of the absence of food or I just got lucky but I had 3 slugs in that 4 years. I still don't feed females that much during the season because if I'm going to use them they're usually the right size before the season starts. I'll offer it to them if I'm feeding other snakes and they look interested. But to answer your question, yes, its fine that she's not eating. If she hasn't lost weight but is a little skinner than normal its because its being used to develop the follicles/eggs and that's what you want