So i just want to make sure i understand all this correct. I know this is real basic stuff, but I'm having a real hard time putting it all together for some reason.

These are the pages i've been reading the most.
http://www.southernxreptiles.com/RA%...ngPythons1.htm
http://www.8ballpythons.com/journal/...ngcalendar.htm
http://www.ballpythons.ca/gallery/breeding.html

Going off of 8ballpythons breeding calendar (the middle link) - i understand the august through january. basically you let the snakes lock up a bunch and drop the temperatures. February confuses me because of the F word - Follicles.

My understanding, correct me because i think i'm wrong, is this -
Around Novermber follicles start out in the ovaries. I'm guessing it's the females natural responses to the lowering temps and the mating(???). By Jan of Feb follicles grow to become almost the size of eggs and can be felt with an exprienced hand (???)
Follicles then move on to the body cavity in a process called ovulation which usually happens sometime around march when the temps are starting to go back up. Once in the body cavity, they get fertilized, becoming eggs - and then sometime around april they pop out and the "eggs are layed."

1) Does the mating early on (in Nov.) do anything to help fertilize the eggs or is that just to trigger changes in the female? i may be confused, but it sounds like "locking up" occurs from Nov - Feb or March. That sounds like a lot of locking up, and that's a pretty big window. Is there a "best time" to let them go at it?

2) Is it possible for a female to develope follicles and ovulate without being with a male? If so, what happens to the unfertilized follicles? More specifically, do they come out as slugs or are they re-absorbed? Is this what slugs are? or are slugs the "bad apples" in a clutch of otherwise good eggs?

3) Longer question:
I have three female snakes, a corn(3 yrs old), a ball(2 yrs old), and a garter snake (4 yrs old).

My corn, an otherwise great feeder, went through a weird, very restless hunger strike. It was from 11/07 - 1/08 - about two months. I had thought it was breeding cycle-related but i never really figured it out and she got over it.

My garter snake was bred 2 years ago. Last year, and again 2 wks ago, she popped out about 7 yellow jellybean looking things i'm guessing are slugs. Does this have anything to do with her having been bred and my corn and ball never being with a male? Will my corn do this if she's "cooled" during the winter.

I'm not planning on breeding anytime soon, but eventually i would like to. I just want to understand this topic a little better - i get a bit confused when reading some threads.

I appreciate any help clearing this up for me! And i hope all my questions make sense.

Thank you