his method was indeed interesting and useful. with our hibernation, it was to shut down the snakes. with Ernies, he kept them at 55F and provided a heat tape if the animals wanted and if the snakes came up, he fed them. Which only happened sometimes. If young adults were a bit small, they had the opportunity to keep growing and produce later in the year. Which I found very useful. With hard hibernation, they either produced early or not at all.
So, I started with no hibernation, brumation was not a term used then as it meant the same as estivate, summer inactivity.
Moved to hibernation, then included CHOICES, and so on and so forth. Which explains why I think recipe keeping is dumb silly. Its a only this way type of approach. Dudes and dudettes, that is so far wrong its insane.
Now to answer your question, Sometimes the timing of the female occurs naturally, sometimes it can be set. Cooling indeed sets that time. Once its set, there is no need to continue hibernation. The female will reproduce within a few days, often the same day, year after year, no matter what you do, brumate, lite cycle, whatever.
As I have mentioned, I have no idea how people think there is ONE way to skin these snakes. That its this and only this. Folks, all that junk was published and now forgotten. If I act odd/weird, condescending. Its because of this, 40 years ago, all this was common knowledge and understood. It is hard for me to think its all forgotten. And its sad. Best wishes

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