Well, in my experience with monitoring follicle growth, i've noticed females will start developing growth at any given time of the year. sometimes they grow slowly and nothing happens. Sometimes a few will grow and the others will stall out. This has always meant in my cases that they don't go into cycle and don't ovulate.
Usually i'll introduce a male once i've seen growth and theri follicle size is within a 15-20 mm range. Follicles start out small at around 3mm and grow from there.
It is my opinion that the introduction of the male will further "ignite" her follicle development and ovulation. So you may be right there. I'm not sure if there has been a boa that has delivered slugs wihtout having been with a male...i may be incorrect on that.
I start my breeding season in the fall and cool my temps, but i measure all my females follicles year round. Some of my females have gone into cycle later on, at which point i've introdeuced males without even affecting the environmental conditions, and quite honestly, on each of them i have produced viable young. I'm 3 for 3 on that, not much but great odds nonetheless.
Same thing this year, i've got these 2 females that are late bloomers, and are definitely in cycle...but this timethe males arent' interested.
I've only been ultrasounding for 2 years now and have learned a lot, but have yet much to learn.
Link
