Hi!
No guinea pig should live alone and they are never too old to do so. I have currently got a friend's 8 year old sow living with mine after the last of her same age mates passed away and she became withdrawn/depressed.
Looking After A Bereaved Guinea Pig
If at all possible, please contact any of our recommended rescues that are within your reach. Most offer dating at the rescue, so Angles can decide who she wants to get on with under expert supervision and at minimal risk for you of ending up with a piggy that doesn't work out. That is by far the best way of finding a new mate of her liking, with the added insurance that any adopted piggy from a good rescue is healthy/quarantined and guaranteed not pregnant and that the crucial bit of the bonding happens at the rescue, so you neatly avoid the tricky bits. You can look at either sows or neutered boars of any age; mutual liking and character compatibility is the crucial aspect.
I have come home with anything from same aged sows (both widows) to neutered 'husboars' 4-5 years younger than the old lady they have have been bonded with (and which they usually adored). Carwyn now has his harem of younger sows after his old lady Ffraid passed away aged 7 in 2015; he was 3 years old at the time. But whatever my piggies chose (often another piggy than I would have gone for), I have always got a happy new relationship out of it and a piggy I loved very much. Some of them became very dear to me indeed!
Here are the rescues that we can vouch for you being in safe and experienced hands. Guinea Lynx has very similar criteria to us for listing good standard rescues in some other countries.
I you wish more detailed recommendations, you may want to add your country, state/province or UK county to your details. For that please click on your username on the top bar, then go to personal details and scroll down to location. This makes it appear underneath your username in every post you make and allows us to tailor any advice to what is available and relevant where you are straight away instead of keeping it as general as possible. We have got members from all over the world, so we have to cover a wide range of situations and backgrounds.
Recommended UK rescues:
Guinea Pig Rescue Centre Locator
Other countries:
Guinea Lynx :: Rescue Organizations
If you cannot get to one of those rescues, then you may want to consider getting a young sow or two that cannot challenge the dominance and do the full intros yourself. You may need to conduct a quarantine if your new guinea pigs are not from a place that has mandatory quarantines and pregnancy watches like a good rescues.
Importance Of Quarantine
Illustrated Bonding / Dominance Behaviours And Dynamics
Here are rescue dated Tribe piggies to show you the range:
3 year old Minx and her new best friend, same age also bereaved Dizzy (Daisy) on the left, and Dizzy with her much adored neutered "toy boy" Llewelyn after Minx' death. Llewelyn became the founder piggy of the Tribe after Dizzy's passing and had 10 wives when he died.
Formidable cataract sows Taffy and Tegyd during their rescue date with gentle neutered black Terfel ("Oak Prince") at a now closed rescue in Rugby; Terfel followed the ladies he was devoted to to the Rainbow Bridge only three weeks after the last of his later three older cataract wives died very unexpectedly in 2015, four years later.
For aby Bedo ("Little Splendid Lord") I travelled 1 1/2 hours on the train with three of my top group sows to The Potteries Guinea Pig Rescue in Stoke-on-Trent. Here he is on the next day with all of his new wives.
Later he fell head over heels with a new similar looking ginger aby sow during a bonding where the new foster sow didn't integrate. I let Bedo choose who he wanted to live with. He is still with me.
Then 3 year old Carwyn ("Blessed Love) with his new young wifelets Heini ("Lively") and Briallen ("Primrose") on the right after the passing of 7 year old frail Ffraid, on the left. Carwyn has since aquired two new younger wifelets and enjoys bossing his harem around! He is now 5 years old.
5 year old lady Tesni ("Sun-warmed") and 5 months old neutered boar Gethin ("Dusky") - one year on, they are still very much loved up!
New arrival neutered Nosgan ("Nightsong") turned out to like boys more than girls, so I found him little white teddy Nye as a boarmate. Cheerful Nye has really brought out skittish bereaved Nosgan (previous name Victor Meldrew) and they are very closely bonded. Nye is now coming to the end of his teenage months.
And my latest date, three year old widowed 'husboar' Pioden ("Magpie") with 5 year old sisters Heulwen and Hedydd.