Guinea pig home in cash crunch after Facebook funding row

A pair who take care of 130 guinea pigs say they concern the pets might need to be rehomed after all of the sudden – and unexpectedly – shedding the earnings they made out of Fb.

Sophie Mason, 34, and her husband, Mark, collectively run the Fb web page Masons’ Cavies, which makes use of its 1.1 million followers to fund the care of the animals.

Ms Mason advised the BBC rehoming the guinea pigs was “an actual chance” after their potential to boost cash on the platform was eliminated with out warning.

Meta, which owns Fb, has not responded to a request for remark.

“They’ve banned us from the whole lot,” Ms Mason mentioned.

“We won’t earn any sort of earnings in any respect, it is all gone – you find yourself pondering, god, what am I going to do?”

The couple pay for the care of their large variety of guinea pigs via promoting and premium live-streams that individuals pay a subscription price to look at.

They’d 2,000 subscriptions on the time their web page was demonetised, however this quantity has since fallen to 1,900 – and so they can not obtain the charges whereas their web page is restricted.

However they’re no nearer to fixing the issue, after Ms Mason’s efforts to contact Fb have been unsuccessful.

“Apparently I’ve damaged a rule, nevertheless it hasn’t advised me what the rule is,” she mentioned.

“I’ve spoken to to the tech folks at Fb a few instances and despatched infinite emails to try to to get this sorted out – however not even their tech group can work out why this has occurred.”

The precise motive for the ban is unknown – however Ms Mason mentioned they’ve skilled one thing related earlier than.

“Our predominant platform for the final seven years has been Fb,” she mentioned.

“Again in 2021, they did this to us as a result of their system had flagged the phrase ‘pig’ as a police hate crime.

“As a creator, should you do something that breaks group requirements, you might be mechanically demonetised. You lose your supply of earnings.”

On the time, Fb accepted a mistake had been made and rectified the error.

However this time, thus far, they haven’t been so fortunate.

Anybody with only one or two pets will know that caring for them is an costly pastime, so it’s no surprise that the payments for 130 animals can add up.

Ms Mason mentioned it prices “an enormous quantity” to pay for the care of their guinea pigs, with charges starting from housing and heating to meals and medical payments.

And that is earlier than even bearing in mind the price of rescuing animals that they put up for adoption.

“In February, we rescued 53 boys, and we received all of them higher,” she mentioned.

“We received all of them neutered, and we’re down to 2 now that we have got left to search out houses for out of the 53.

“We received all of them well being checked a number of instances – if you wish to put a determine on that, that rescue price was about 5 and a half grand.”

They are saying their pets have both been rescued from unhealthy conditions or taken on from different folks – with some additionally bought, however they aren’t working a charity or an animal rescue.

And the couple’s work has accomplished good for extra guinea pigs than simply their very own.

“The quantity of those that we have impressed to enhance the care of their guinea pigs is wonderful,” Ms Mason mentioned.

“Folks ship you pictures of the setups that they’ve made, that are a lot greater and so significantly better, and so they’re offering higher meals and higher high quality hay and spending extra time with them.

“I am so happy with that.”