Baby pot belly pigs going to the bathroom

Question
I went to this animal swap with my sister we have been into horses for over ten years and was just looking. I fell in love with a baby pot belly pig and bought her. She is bottle fed. I have noticed that she hasn't gone to the bathroom. I have had her now for five hours. I tried using a damp warm rag to wipe her bottom unsure of what to do. Nothing still. I have a seragot mom dog that licked her bottom. A family friend said she might be constipated. What do I do? She had poops by her on a rag when i bought her.

Answer
Could be any number of issues here...

Piglets should stay with their moms until they are about 8 weeks old and completely weaned. Because you mention bottle feeding I am guessing that your piglet is very young.

Bottle feeding in general is not a good idea because it's easy for the piggy to aspirate liquid into the lungs, causing pneumonia. So switch your piggy to dish feeding, just put some warm NOT HOT goat milk or formula in the dish, piggy will figure it out pretty quick.

Cows milk is great for baby cows but not baby pigs. Sow replacement formula or goat milk is a better choice. Because your piggy is away from Mom and not yet weaned, it's best to get her eating Starter or Youth Pot-bellied Pig food as soon as possible so she gets enough vitamins and minerals. Start by mixing a few pellets in with her milk, let them get really soggy. Keep adding more and more pellets at each meal until it's like oatmeal, then start cutting back on the liquid. Make sure piggy always has fresh water available to drink.

Young healthy piglets will poop maybe 2x a day, adult pigs generally poop once or maybe twice. An underfed piglet will not poop as much. An overfed piglet might poop more often. As long as piggy is getting only milk, give piggy as much as he wants. The goal is to get him eating at least 1/2 cup of starter pig chow per day, until he is 15 lb or so, and then the amount might need to increase or start adding veggies to each meal. A piglet should gain an average of 1 lb per week until they are 25 lb or so. Don't forget every treat has calories. If piggy starts to get too fat, cut back on treats, use lower calorie treats and only for training.  

Feeding a pig is more of an art than a science. Each pig is different, and the pigs activity level and environment play a role. The best guide is how the pig looks - no ribs or hip bones should be visible. The pig should have a "well fed" look, but if he looks like he swallowed a basket ball, then it's time to cut back on treats or increase the activity level. A pig with a swollen belly and protruding hip or shoulder bones is suffering from malnutrition and needs to see a vet at once.

The litter box should be big enough for the piglet to turn around in, and low enough for piggy to step in without stepping up and over a rim. Pine litter makes the best shavings. Young piglets can't control their body temperatures, so they need a warm environment with a cooler spot so they can move away from the heat source if they get too hot.

Piglets that were weaned early and bottle fed tend to demonstrate aggression when they reach age 2 or so. It's somewhere between difficult and impossible to get a pig to change a bad habit, it's much easier to teach them good habits right from the start. So I highly recommend Priscilla Valentine's book Pot-bellied Pig Behavior and Training. She really understands how pigs think, and covers much more material in greater detail than I can here. You can get her book from Amazon.com or her website www.valentinesperformingpigs.com