Dang, this tends to make folks mad, but here goes, Brumate is a word that describes what the snake is doing. If its breeding and doing things other then what suppose to happen, its NOT brumating.

An example, this year I brumated some cal kings and blairs, at 45F to 60F, oddly or not, they are fed and processed food just fine at those temps.

Also, your other behaviors of feeding not feeding, can be indicators, or not. Which means, sometimes they feed, stop, start, etc and other times the same animals can do something different.
FRom doing this for a very long time, I have seen lots of stuff. Most can be easily explained, some cannot.
While temps are important for such events like brumation. There seems to be more. In this case, our natural oddball weather seems to effect the activity of snakes in captivity. One example a fried came over and I asked if he put his animals together yet, he said no, they are in hibernation/brumation, I said, lets go check them, he asked why, I said, all of mine had already cycled and bred. He said, its too soon. We went over and all his females were full of unfertilized eggs(while in brumation).
So seeing these types events over the years and observing the same in nature. This year the species I observe in nature are already gravid and some are laying. 6 weeks sooner then normal.
This also occurred on another forum(hogs) and folks kick and scream in their belief of a word. The actual point is, learn to palpate for ovum and eggs, and you will know exactly what your animals doing at anytime of year. Its handy, easy, does not cost money, easy on the animals. No reason to not learn it. For instance, If palpated your female, I would tell you how many eggs shes carrying and offer a decent opinion on if they have been fertilized. Fertilized eggs expand are larger so the gaps between the eggs is less to not there. best wishes

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