LSU AgCenter Works On Eliminating Feral Hogs

The Louisiana Soybean, Grain Research and Promotion Board provided funding to Dr. Glen Gentry at the Idlewild Research Station to find ways of controlling feral hogs. One bait method studied was encapsulation.

“We went down that road,” says Gentry, “but it was very, very time consuming and can be expensive. So basically you’re trying to encapsulate these particles that look like salt particles to protect them from the atmosphere. But at the same time have them released in the digestive tract of the pig.”

What researchers found, Gentry says, about a year or so ago, was if they changed the pH of the bait matrix to make it slightly alkaline “about 7.5 on up, the sodium nitrite doesn’t decompose or change form. So it doesn’t need to be encapsulated which makes the bait processing and bait manufacturing much, much easier and it still kills pigs.”