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Caring for one that lost it's Friend.

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Hello.

This morning one of my sister's guinea pigs passed away. Both guineas are female. It spent its whole life with another. As they are very sociable animals, we are worried that the remaining one will get lonely. I was just hoping for some advice on how to help the remaining one continue to live a 'normal' life.

However, as my sister is getting older, we will not be getting anymore once the last one has lived it's life, so we will not be introducing a new guinea to this one. We have given it a soft toy which is about the same size as it, a suggestion that I've seen many a time on the internet. I came on here to ask if there are any other ways of keeping it happy for the remainder of it's life? (Note: they both recently turned 4 years old).

Any suggestions would be highly appreciated. Thankyou.
 
Lots of human interaction :)

I had one piggy, Poppy on her own for the last 2 1/2 years of her life when her friend passed away aged 4 1/2. It's not ideal, but there were lots of reasons why we couldn't pair her up, one being a bad experience in the past & another that we decided after her we couldn't face the pain of losing anymore, so we decided to keep her (indoors) on her own, she actually didn't miss her friend at all, ate & slept as normal & was healthy right up until she passed away last year. I hasten to add we never expected her to live until she was 7, most of our others passed away before they were 5, so we didn't really want another baby one & don't have a reputable rescue nearby for bonding.

However it's not ideal & I don't recommend it unless you are 100% positive you don't want anymore, & then it may be kinder to rehome her through a good rescue so they can rehome her with a friend. We couldn't do that as we loved her too much. If she had pined at all for her friend, e.g. crying or stopped eating we would have got her another friend straight away. Most people on here won't agree to keeping a piggy on their own & in the majority of cases you should always at least try to keep them in pairs.
 
I agree with Poppy's Mum. Perhaps the best thing would be to try and rehome her with other piggies.
 
Lot's of human - time.
Whether you would like to get her a friend is up to you. I'm not sure how well it works.
I do know that if hard to lose a pig a deal with a lone pig. (I currently live with one)
 
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