Yesterday, Jon went into pets at home to get some mince for the ferrets while I was at work, and texted me to say there was a lone dumbo lad in the adoption centre.
He knows I will occasionally take on lone rats in the adoption centre, and I had just lost Mandylor on monday so he wanted to get me a little dumbo lad to help me. Was really sweet of him.
This rats notes said this rat had previously had a UTI (urinary tract infection) but he'd been vet treated and was all fine now.

I texted Jon and told him to get the little lad. When he got him home, he texted me again to say he didn't think the boy was very well, as he'd opened his box and found it full of blood.
Jon is a medic, so he has medical knowledge, even if its not specific to rats! He sent me a pic, and the little rat clearly had blood in his poo, not his wee.
Jon also said he thought he was anaemic and advised me to make a vet appointment for him after work.

When he picked me up, he brought the little boy, whom I named Scooter, with him so we could go right to the vet.
With just one look, I could see he wasn't well. His ears were absolutely white, and his front teeth too He was very bright, very perky, but obviously very anaemic and I could see the blood in his poo.
The vet could feel a thickening in his bowel, but said it could be due to a number of causes from parasites to ulcers to infection to cancer. He didn't give Scooter much hope of recovery, and said that if I wanted to euthanise him there and then, it wouldn't be a mistake.
But since he was still eating, bright, curious and didn't seem in pain, I couldn't just give up on him without treatment so I asked if we could try something.
Scooter had a shot of voren (a steroid, dexamethasone, I think), and was given some synulox drops (antibiotic) and panacur (wormer) to go home with.

He is apparently only 6 months old (I personally think younger, or it could just be that he's stunted).
Today, he did a poo and I coudn't see any blood in it at all, it looked normal to me, but obviously he's still horribly pale. Im giving him iron supplements in his water, as well as lots of good food and Kale.

Im not hopeful he will recover. I had a very young rat, Marco, from the same source some years back to had an enormous internal mass and had to be put to sleep about 2 weeks later. The rats from this store, and most pet shops, are horrendously bred and getting something this serious at this young of an age is not a surprise.
I think that ultimately, I believe he will die or need to be put to sleep. He'd just so anaemic and pale and I've never seen a rat this anaemic recover from it.
Im treating him like a terminally ill child; he may not have long with me, but Im going to make his time with me as good as it can possibly be.

I called pets at home today and told them I was concerned that their 'vet' hadn't picked up on his issues, since it took me one minute to notice he was anaemic, and my vet took seconds to discover his thickened bowel.
P@h said he'd seen 'three different vets'. Well, that's either a lie, or they're utterly incompetent vets!
Long story short, they're reimbursing my £50 vet bill.
And pets at home are meant to be the 'best' pet shop in the UK. Fantastic.


This is Scooter:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/.....p;l=53a78b0dfb

You can see on some of the pics that his top teeth are white. A healthy rat's teeth should be bright orange. He's so anaemic that his teeth don't even have colour.
Im told he looks like a blue-based variety, which previously did have issues with anaemia and bleeding disorders. Its mostly been bred out of good quality rats, but is still common in pet shop and BYB rats :(