i live in st louis and it sounds like you went to the exotic arc off bayless? if so they have 2 tanks with ball pythons.1 tank is captive hatched and the other tank is captive bred.i bought one of the captive hatched for 25 and it didnt eat for a few weeks and was very under weight.in that batch of captive hatched there was a few that looked really bad and there was a few that looked great.i picked one that wasnt looking so good just as a experiment/rescue and the few weeks ive had her shes done great.one question,do you buy your feeder mice there?i noticed someone buying a few yesterday and there was 3 dead mice in the tub.you might have gotten a sick or infected mouse.there is another exotic pet store that only sells captive bred animals and if any of those dont eat it becomes cobra food so your pretty much garunteed a healthy snake from there.the 2 ive gotten from there have been excellent.its called exotic pets and its off kingston and telegraph pretty close to the jb bridge.