This is my first year, too, so take everything I say with a grain of salt if you like.

This season, I'm breeding:

1.0 Pastel x 0.3 Normal
1.1 Het Piebald

I was doing the same thing, planning on dropping temps through Oct, then introducing in November, but I got antsy seeing everybody talk about how they introduce without cooldowns, etc. so I put both my boys in on Saturday night. Within a day, here's what I saw:

Het Pieds


Pastel x Normal


Looks like it works! (At least sometimes.)