Piglet who Whines at Meal Time

Question
I have a three month old piglet, Lulu.  We adopted her at ten weeks.  We have bought all of the recommended books and have started training her.  So far, things have been going really well.  However, Lulu starts to get very whiny when it is getting close to meal time.  We make sure that we do not feed her upon first waking up in the morning, or when we first get home from work, as our reading recommended.  We always wait about 45 minutes to an hour.  But, during this time, she starts to whine.  If we are sitting on the floor with her, she will start to root us on the sides of our legs and whine.  If we go in the kitchen, which is where we keep her food, she will stand at the gate by the entrance to the kitchen and whine.  Is there anything we can do to get her to stop whining?  Or is it something that we just have to deal with?

I have one other question.  We feed her breakfast in the morning, dinner around 4:00, and then some vegetables around 8:00.  Would it be better to combine the vegetables in with her dinner?  I read somewhere it is best to stick to two meals a day.

Thank you so much for your time and your help!
Jana

Answer
She knows meals won't come until it's time, but she's hungry, so she whines. Obesity is a serious problem in pet pigs, underfeeding is just as serious. The general rule of thumb is 1/2 cup pellets per 15 lb of piglet, but this is just a starting point. You may need to adjust up or down for the individual pig.

Most people feed twice a day, but any number of meals is fine and more is actually better for younger piglets. Their tummies are smaller and can't always hold enough food to tide them over to the next meal.  

My suggestion is to try increasing the amount of pellets at each meal. Some people free feed piglets up to 2 cups of food per day, I would not go over that amount for the average pot-bellied pig. After a day or two of larger meals, the whining should diminish or stop altogether.