rescued ball python from the horrific petco!

[LadyHawk]

There seem to be some misconceptions about what Petco can and can't feed BPs. I was a Companion Animal Manager there, and you can feed live! There is a very strict "snake not eating protocol" that they're supposed to follow, and if a snake is refusing to eat, live is an option! It takes a huge amount of effort to get it approved, which is why some CADMs won't do it, but it's possible. I had to live feed several snakes to get them eating again.
There was a BP that came into the store weighing 59g. He was timid, and fearful, and wouldn't eat. I tried absolutely every trick including live food to get him to eat, but he would only eat every 4-5 feedings. Finally, I left him in the back, and he began eating again. He was scared out on the floor, and only felt comfortable in a quiet room. The problem of course, is that you can't sell anything from the back, so I'd have to return him to the floor after a few good meals, and he'd go on a hunger strike again. After he was in the store for six months, he weighed 67g. I considered it a victory that he wasn't losing weight at least.
After I left that job, I adopted him because the person who took over couldn't get him to eat. Once he was home in his QT tank which is in my bedroom (well away from my other snakes), he has eaten every single week, even when he's blue! I've decided to keep him in my room because it's quieter, and he really doesn't like people walking by him. He's now 180 grams and growing quickly.
So it's not always horrible care, some animals just can't handle being in a pet store (and who could blame them?)
Oh, and the "crickets in the Corn Snake enclosures" thing that's often used as a sign of bad care? Those little buggers squeeze through the barriers between enclosures and end up in everywhere! At my store, they were always in the hermit crab enclosure, I'd get them all out, and ten minutes later there would be one in there again.