‘A guinea pig got me through my divorce’
When Jme Eglington was going through a painful separation he found an unlikely source of comfort.
‘Normally someone might turn to drinking or drugs, but for me, I turned to guinea pigs,’ the hair stylist recalls. ‘It was a very painful time of life. But guinea pigs actually got me through my divorce, I don’t know what I’d have done without them.’
As he speaks, Jme stands in front of a tower of rosette-covered hutches, gently stroking his prize-winning golden-honey haired pet. It’s one of 80 guinea pigs at his home.
Jme is sharing his story alongside other guinea pig fanatics in new Netflix documentary, The Keepers of The Pigs. Directed by journalist Sharon Walia, the film explores people’s weird and wonderful – and worrying – relationships with the creatures across the world.
After his divorce, Jme explains how he ‘put all his efforts’ into guinea pigs, which he believe have a ‘healing property’.
The 36-year-old started off with a couple in hutches in his garden, before his little furry family grew. Jme began to work as a judge at shows which gave him the opportunity to travel across Europe.
He says: ‘They’re like Pringles. When you start, you just can’t stop.’
Not only did the pets provide solace, but Jme found a new family of friends within the guinea pig community.
Guinea pigs, also known as ‘cavies’ in Latin, are one of the oldest pets in the world, thought to have been domesticated as early as 5000BC. In the UK, the oldest guinea pig remains were discovered at Hill Hall House, an Elizabethan manor in Essex, in 1575.
Today, the animals have earned cult status after being celebrated in hit TV show Fleabag, while a London guinea pig cafe lets customers enjoy a cup of tea surrounded by memorabilia inspired by the mammal.
Sharon tells Metro that she was inspired to make the Keeper of The Pigs after a broadcast she did for regional channel Notts TV – about Avalon Guinea Pig Rescue – went viral.
‘Guinea pigs are going through a new wave of popularity,’ she explains. ‘There’s lots of TikTok videos, YouTube videos and Instagram accounts dedicated to them.
‘And of course they featured in Fleabag. But with that kind of popularity there is sadly also a rise in hoarding, neglecting and dumping of guinea pigs.
‘I wanted to tell all sides to the story.’
Sharon has three guinea pigs of her own; Nugget, Sweep and Brule.
In The Keepers of The Pigs, she delves into the vast, often unseen, multiverse of guinea pig superfans, including the competitive scene where owners go head to head to determine the Best in Show.
However, Sharon’s most gut-wrenching part of filming came when she visited Peru, a country where guinea pigs are not friends, but food.
At an Incan festival, locals dedicated songs and chants to the small but mighty rodent. This was before the guinea pig was deep-fried and offered up at nearby food stalls.
Vegan Sharon tells Metro: ‘I’ve had comments on Facebook from people who won’t see the film because of the fact it shows guinea pigs being eaten.
‘But you cannot make a film about guinea pigs without mentioning Peru, it’s impossible. You have to tell the whole story. Plus, I’ve never been to a country that celebrates any animal like Peru does the guinea pig.’
While in South America, Sharon also heard about how the guinea pig industry provides vital employment for many women in South America. She spoke to one mother who was able to send her children to school thanks to the profits she’d made in the industry from farming the animals.
She also visited Carmen Felipe-Morales, who found a way to transform the microorganisms of guinea pig poo into compost and gas. Doing so creates less pressure compared to using the excrement from a larger animal, such as a cow or goat, for the same purpose.
Carmen and her husband Ulises Moreno have near to 1,000 guinea pigs to make the feat possible.
The experiment has been so successful that guinea pig poo powers the stove in their home. In the film, a thick flame darts out over the stove as the pig poo works its magic.
They also have enough energy left over to fuel their gas-powered bulbs and an electric generator for their television. Anything left, they sell as compost or liquid plant feed to locals.
Back in the UK, Sharon sat down with Alison Byford who runs Guinea Pig Magazine. Now in its 67th issue, there’s no signs of the publication slowing down.
‘I have more content than I do pages,’ Alison tells the film.
One fixture of the magazine is ‘Piggies Next Top Model’ while countless other pages offer integral advice on caring for the pets.
Alison tells Sharon that she was inspired, in part, to start the magazine by the lack of research and information available about guinea pigs. She hopes her work can encourage more thoughtful owners to adopt the pets.
‘Guinea pigs are the most abused and neglected household pet there is,’ she explains. ‘For a nation of animal lovers, we don’t half abuse these poor animals. But as they grow in popularity, so does the dumping culture.’
A large chunk of the film follows Shaz Kelly at Avalon Guinea Pig Rescue, who works eight hours a day to provide for the pigs in her care.
The sanctuary is likened to a maternity ward, with Shaz as ‘acting guinea pig midwife.’ She speaks of the animals arriving ‘with no hair, covered in blood, with dry and cracked skin.’
Meanwhile, at Cavey Corner in Doncaster, volunteers face the same surge in unwanted guinea pigs.
The charity was founded by Winston and Sue Tate in the summer of 2008. The couple fielded calls from as far as India of people asking for advice on how to care for their pets.
On one occasion, a girl named Carly brought a heavily injured guinea pig to the sanctuary. She had witnessed a group of boys kicking the pet round ‘like a football’ before she bravely intervened.
Sadly, in 2021 – just before filming began for Keepers of the Pigs – Winston died.
He was buried in a colourful coffin, which depicted several guinea pigs on a green field.
Ellie Lowther, volunteer at Cavey Corner, described Winston as the ‘heart and soul’ of the sanctuary who taught this generation of guinea pig carers ‘everything they knew.’
In her documentary Sharon also explores misconceptions regarding guinea pigs – such as the belief they’re just a childhood pet. She thinks they should be seen in the same light as a dog or cat.
She explains: ‘If you go out and ask 100 people if they’d ever had a guinea pig, I bet 95% of people who answer yes had them as a child.
‘That’s a little sad. It means they can be the pet left at the bottom of the garden in a hut, forgotten about. This film is about opening people’s eyes to the amazing people who are involved with guinea pigs.
‘Before this, I was someone who did associate them with women and children. But there are so many men – such as our rugby-star turned guinea pig judge Peter Warden we interview in the film – really into them. Talking to these people broke down a lot of stereotypes for me.’
The Keepers of the Pigs may seem like a big jump from Sharon’s previous film, The Movement, which focused on everyday heroes saving refugees on land, at sea and from air.
‘My first film was very, very serious. So when I’ve told some people about this film, they’ll say “oh, that’s nice and fluffy. That’s cute.” ‘But I’m trying to stress to people that this film isn’t soft and fluffy,’ she says.
‘There are some really happy and great human-interest stories, but there are also hard-hitting and powerful parts which are hard to watch.
‘The Keepers of the Pigs tells the truth about the scale of animal cruelty. Britain is meant to be a nation of animal lovers, but if that was the case then sanctuaries wouldn’t have to exist and have to work so hard. They’re like food banks, a necessary evil in the society we’ve been left in.’
The Keepers of the Pigs comes to Netflix on August 1. Follow Sharon on social media to find out more.
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This article was originally published on November 8, 2023