Breeding or copulation is not synonomous with egg production. I wish it were. I have males that will court and copulate any time of the year. Problem is timing with the female production of egg follicles for fertilization. Tracy and Dave Barker could explain the cycle of egg development in far more detail as it relates to short-tailed pythons. There is a paper by Dale DeNardo and Keller Autumn called "Effect on Male Presence on Reproductive Activity in Captive Female Blood Pythons." Copeia 2001(4), pp 1138-1141. This paper indicates that a male needs to be in the presence of the female for egg production to be successful above just the need to fertilize the eggs. From a practical standpoint, like all pythons, it still appears to be necessary to clue the snakes that breeding season is here. Misting daily, a slight drop in normal temperatures and a change in the photoperiod have worked for me. When I did not provide a cooling period, nothing happened.
Once you have a female of good weight, successful copulation and egg production, you might get lucky and hatch some babies. Then again, you might have problems and they don't survive like the picture of this hatchling. The whole clutch died at various stages and only this one made it, but for only two weeks. Oh ya, I examined the other eggs and the other babies looked like this guy 
