"Brumating" 2yo BPs Won't Eat

[Feistay94]

Hey all,

I have two 2.5 year old ball pythons (female pied, male pastel butter het hypo) that are on a hunger strike. The female went on her first hunger strike last March, right before Covid closed down the US/New York. She didn't start eating again until September, but she didn't lose weight, acted normal, pooped, etc the whole time she refused food. We offered her a rat every time we fed our male. This year she's doing it again and our male has joined her. They both stopped eating this year around April and we've been offering rats every couple of weeks based on their weight. No weight change, no behavior change, same as my female last year.

Just to get the basics out of the way, they're in separate 40g tanks with the same accommodations (except the male has a skull mountain decoration that he's rather fond of), the two temp spots, humidity, etc. in each tank are appropriately timed and monitored. They live a pretty quiet life as we are at work between 6am and 6pm and except for cleaning the tank we only really handle them if they're already out and about (mostly the male because he's active every night, but we'll unearth the female if we haven't seen her to check on her). They were eating weekly when they were younger and got moved to 10 days, 14 days, etc. based on weight.

As far as I can tell there's nothing wrong with the tanks, they're not stressed, they are not trying to breed/look for each other, and nothing has changed from their normal routine since their last hide size upgrade in December 2020 (they were both eating regularly before and after until April 2021). So I'm wondering what ELSE could be going on or if they're just being finicky pains in the behind? Does a 2 week difference in their age make a difference as to why the male waited until this year to "brumate"? Is the winter "brumation" based on Africa's winter or their native hemisphere's winter (mine being NY's, which they obviously aren't going by lol)?

Thanks in advance for the advice and support!

Edit: I don't know if this is relevant, but the female sometimes does this weird thing where she won't strike, but if I put the rat down she pokes it a whole bunch and eats it off the ground like a scavenger. She did this a couple times last year when she did her hunger strike and again between Sept-April before she started this year's hunger strike. I have NOOO idea why she does it though. The male has never done this and was a ravenous eater up until April.