Your first and most important DO is this:
Quarantine the female before you even consider introducing the male. This is especially important if you plane to use the male on multiple females. Three months is a good minimum. In this case, it might work in your favour because it gives you a chance to cycle the female as well.
Markus Jayne’s guide is a good start, I modify mine a little differently but that is personal preference
Typical cycle window is to begin around Thanksgiving. Drop temps a few degrees, if you have lights, put the cycle to something like 10/14. Feeding should be, at most, once a month and a smaller than usual item. Or just cut feeding off entirely. Maintain like this until at least Valentine’s Day, but you can take it to St. Patty’s if you like. Bring temps back up to normal (or, in your case, bring her out of quarantine and into your main snake room/rack) and then after 7-10 days, offer a small food item. If she does not take, give her another few days and try again.
Two to three weeks after you have raised temps back up, introduce the male to the female’s tub. I leave my males in for three days, some times they lock within a couple hours, other times they take a day or two to figure it out. After their time together, separate. I pair up every two to three weeks. I would not do more frequent than that. I know some people that only pair once per shed cycle so it does not need to be as frequent either.
Continue to offer food weekly for the first four to six weeks you start pairing. I will offer my females a medium rat so they have a bit of extra calories assuming they go. This is the only time I feed at this frequency and after that window I drop back to every other week.
I will keep pairing going through September. If she has not gone by that point then I assume she is not going.
If she is going, you will see behaviour changes. She will start spending a lot of time on the cool side of the tub. You may see bowl wrapping.
A month or so before she goes, you will see a hormone-induced change in colour, often referred to as “the glow”. This is a good sign. After the glow she should start building, basically, she will look like she is getting fat even though she has probably stopped feeding at this point. Then she ovulates - looks like she swallowed a football. A few weeks later, she will shed and then a monthish after that she will drop her clutch.
MI is a fine practice and I honestly think every breeder should experience it at least once. You just need to make sure the humidity stays right. Always make sure water is available. You can offer food but most females will refuse. I like to try and candle the eggs when they are laid if I am doing MI just to make sure she is on a viable clutch but after that I leave her alone.
60ish days later, you should get pips. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later. I start watching around day 55 and if nothing has happened by day 72 I might candle again to make sure nothing has gone wrong
