Okay, so I just joined this site, and we've only had our guinea pig for a little over a week. While I re-homed Bela from someone who decided they didn't want her after 2 weeks, I did get in touch with the original woman who had her. The woman stated she was never bred and that at the time she had 4 female guineas 3 of which she re-homed (that's how Bela ended up at my friends house). She kept a younger female (who she apparently bred because it gave birth yesterday), any way my question is this: since she had the babies and I expressed interest in getting another female guinea pig am I in some unspoken, unwritten rule breaking the guinea pig code of ethics by getting one of the new guinea's when they are ready? I have searched local shelters around here (in a small country town) and I have not come across any guinea pigs, the ones at our local Petco look terrible (TERRIBLE). Being new to the whole guinea pig world, what is the ethical, reasonable, responsible alternative to finding a female guinea pig??? I am in no way trying to start a don't do this/don't do that war, I just don't want to do all the wrong things...