Early Wake calls

Question
I need a little help. My pbp is almost a year and has done really good with not waking up to early. Well in the past month it has been around 4am. He sleeps in our bathroom with a child gate in the door opening just cause I don't want him to feel closed in. Anyway he wakes up knocks the gate down or tries to. I get up take the gate down and shut the door and he head butts or jumps on it for a while. I try not to let him out till around 5. which is still early. He goes out uses the bathroom and I fix his food and he is quite till I get home from work. He eats supper about 9:30. We don't hear anything till the 4am LOUD wake up call. Is there a way I can make it where he is not waking up so early?
Thanks
Pamela

Answer
Pigs are creatures of habit. But sometimes they change their habits due to a change around them, or sometimes for no reason at all. Most pigs are early risers. Many get up, walk around, potty and go back to sleep until breakfast. This is especially true in summer when it gets light outside quite early.

Does your pig have a litter box? If so, my suggestion would be to just leave the gate off the door and see what happens. Your pig is used to sleeping in the bathroom, so chances are that's exactly what he'll do with or without the gate.

With the gate gone, he will likely just wake up and walk around. When he finds nothing is happening and there's nothing to eat, there's a very good chance he'll just go right back to bed and sleep.

I mention the litter box because a 1 year old pig is still quite young. Pigs normally potty when they wake up, in fact, the need to potty may be what's waking him. With a litter box, you don't need to worry about him going potty when he's roaming the house at 4 am. Without a litter box, he might have an accident. So if you try this without a box, check very carefully every morning for any accidents. If there's any sign of a mistake, then part of the problem is his need to potty.

The problem with a pig is, if the pig gets his way once, he'll keep trying and trying and trying! So if you want your pig to sleep until, say 7 am and not bother you at all until then, there's only one way to do it, and that is to ignore the pig completely until 7 am. It isn't easy to ignore a loud, screaming pig who is throwing himself against a door! And, it may take as long as a week or two for him to get the idea. The longer he's been waking people up at HIS time, the longer it will take to retrain him.

Some people simply can't do this. So one solution is when the pig gets up, give him a tiny breakfast and go straight back to bed. Another solution that works for some people is a doggie door to a fenced run so the pig can go outside, potty, graze etc. then come back in and sleep without disturbing the humans.