Guinea Pig just won't bond.

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So a while ago I adopted 4 guinea pigs, life was good. 3 children and 1 adult the father of the 3. They came from a complex home with all sorts of differing animals, and I'm not sure how much they were handled and how well their environment was there. I would haste a guess as "unideal". The older one is about a year now, and the children about 6 months old.
They're all male which may be not helping the issue. The three kids? Lovely, love each other, get on right well. From day one dad was a little raucous, chased everyone around. I spent a few weeks observing which one he didn't dislike the most, whilst he was still in the "not violent" phase, which he unfortunately moved towards so i could split them 2 & 2. What has actually happened is we have 3 & 1 despite repeated attempts, and obviously the '1' is problematic. I tried different children with him and he was borderline violent with all of them at least once over the 2-4 days i tried them with each other (one of them i removed after about 30 hours as he was getting pretty hated & bullied hugely with bite attempts aplenty). None of this playful chasing around or mounting trying to assert dominance and hierarchy. Straight up attempting to bite them (and unfortunately, successfully at least once).

Does anyone have some advice to help this? Are there cases where guinea pigs straight up just don't want a cagemate? I am open to all suggestions currently, as whilst 3 & 1 is a very quiet day for me, I do feel very sad for the 1. He is eating & drinking as normal, constantly munching the hay as well as the daily veg, but I do suspect he is a tiny bit lonely. A friend has suggested adopting another single guinea pig who lost a cagemate and trying to bond one who isn't family, but I really don't want to do that unless we have a good chance of them gelling together, as at worse we turn the 3 & 1 into 3 & 1 & 1

All four of my guinea pigs appear to be healthy, they all eat & drink normally. Although the father occasionally does run around and chirp rather madly, possibly because he can hear his ex-cagemates still, if not see them.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’m afraid this 3 and 1 situation is one possible outcome of attempting a boar quartet but the 3 part is the one least likely to work long term. (Most boar trios involving youngsters won’t make it to adulthood)
You could end up with a 2 and 1 and 1 situation anyway (or possibly all four single).

Your single piggy absolutely will accept another piggy but it will not be one of his sons (he isnt character compatible with them).
His cage must be side by side with them to prevent loneliness. He cannot be above/below or across the room from them.

If you do want him to have a live in friend, then the best thing is to contact a rescue centre and get on their bonding waiting lists, so that you can date him with other single boys and see if he can find one he likes before committing. That way you won’t end up with another failed bond and more single piggies (except if the bond between the sons fails and then there is the potential to need to get another friend from anyone left single from that).

 

[Urmel]

Some guinea pigs just don't get along, and family ties unfortunately have no bearing on that. It's extremely rare that guinea pigs are completely anti-social (it's not a part of their normal behaviour but might happen as the result of severe trauma), usually they just haven't found the right cagemate yet. That said, some are harder to get along with than others, and that's especially true among boars. It's not the ideal scenario, but most can live fairly happy lives on their own as long as other guinea pigs are in sight.

I have seen boar trios working well, but be prepared that you could see another falling out between the three that are getting along fine now as they go through puberty. I would wait at least for another few months or so before you make decisions on additional adoptions, because the situation might still change - you might have to consider how many separate groups you can realistically keep in case more bonds fail among the three. You are completely right that there's a good chance that your father boar won't get along with just any other guinea pig given his past behaviour, so I would get in touch with a responsible rescue that offers boar dating, or that allows you to exchange the guinea pig if the bonding fails at home. Rescues can often also advise you on temperaments, which helps a little with the chances. In my experience, boars that are used to sows often have more trouble getting along with an all-boar group, which could be a factor here. If you are unable to find a boar that works for him, you could think about getting him neutered and finding a sow, which has much higher success rates, although you would need to ensure that the sow is kept out of smelling distance from any boar group, ideally in separate rooms.