Our Story

Guinea Pig Network began in 2014 as a small Facebook group called Guinea Pig Advice and Support. What started as a handful of owners trying to help each other eventually grew into a community of 200,000 members spanning the globe. By 2024, we were one of the largest and most trusted guinea pig communities on the internet, and we helped improve husbandry standards across the board and saved countless lives along the way.

Our care guides were written and refined by a team of more than 20 experienced guinea pig owners, bringing over 75 years of combined experience in guinea pig husbandry, health, and welfare. Our backgrounds span veterinary care, animal rescue, show breeding, and wildlife rehabilitation. We believe better care starts with better information, so we combined that lived experience with current research to offer a modern, evidence-based approach to guinea pig care, rather than recycled myths or guesswork.

Losing It All

In September 2024, Facebook took down all of the largest guinea pig groups, including ours, citing “scamming.” It wasn't true. The real reason was never explained to us; we suspect it was an AI mistake the company has never been willing to address. Every admin on our team was banned from Meta platforms, and no appeal worked.

Guinea Pig Advice and Support came back online in November 2024, after the story spread across other platforms and Facebook eventually reversed the bans. But Facebook never reinstated our personal accounts. One of our team members eventually won hers back—but only after going legal. Most of us can't say the same, and still can't create new accounts, even with new phone numbers and emails. Together we lost over a decade of photos, messages, and connections with people and pets we'll never get back.

In the time since, people have found us in other corners of the internet, and in real life, and told us how much they missed having somewhere reliable to turn. They asked where all of our information went. That's what convinced us it was worth rebuilding.

Starting Fresh

Through it all, our team stayed in touch privately, and eventually decided to open that space to the public rather than let years of knowledge go to waste. We're not trying to recreate the Facebook group; that chapter is closed. But the values that made it work are still very much alive: kindness, sound advice, and a genuine commitment to guinea pig welfare.

That's what led to Guinea Pig Network. We rebuilt our community from the ground up, and this website exists to bring our care guides back into the world, this time on our own terms: a home base that isn't tied to any single platform, and can't disappear the way our group did in 2024.

Our Mission Going Forward

Our goal hasn't changed since 2014: give guinea pig owners real, evidence-based information they can trust, and a community that genuinely cares whether their pigs thrive. We answer to our members, not to sponsors—there are no ads on this site, no paid placements, and no brand representatives steering our advice. What we recommend is simply what we'd use with our own guinea pigs, because their welfare is the only thing that matters to us. Whether you found us years ago on Facebook or you're discovering us for the first time, we're glad you're here. We're just getting started, again.