FERAL pigs could have met their match with a new “sleeping pill” heading their way.

The toxin, Hog-Gone, is being hailed as a breakthrough in defeating the pest in a humane way, essentially putting the wild animal “to sleep”.

“There is no evidence of struggling or pain at all,” Animal Control Technologies’ Linton Staples said.

“There’s no collateral damage to other species, and no impacts to the environment ... we’re quite excited about this being a major breakthrough.”

The toxin has been seven years in the making, with Prof Staples now finalising an application to the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority for the toxin’s use in Australia.

Currently there are few methods for controlling feral pigs — whose numbers in Australia can reach 25 million, depending on the season — beyond trapping and shooting, or using 1080 poison.

But Prof Staples said that given the pigs’ size, 1080 was not ideal because large amounts were needed for it to work.

Hog-Gone, in contrast, uses sodium nitrite, a food preservative that wild pigs can’t tolerate, and generally avoid.

Researchers have found a way to hide the sodium nitrite in a palatable bait which, once eaten, stops oxygen circulating in the bloodstream, similar to carbon monoxide poisoning. “The pigs don’t know anything about it,” Prof Staples said.

“It’s painless — they’re dead within an hour and there is no residue in the carcass,” he said.

In-pen trials show a success rate greater than 90 per cent, while in-field it’s about 80 per cent.

Feral pigs are a growing problem across Australia, their damage costing agriculture at least $100 million a year.

With no natural predators, the pigs can rampage unchecked, predating on young livestock, damaging fencing and destroying hectares of land in a night.

But the biggest threat is their potential to carry and spread a swath of diseases to livestock, particularly should their ever be an outbreak of foot-and-mouth.

Prof Staples said the toxin’s development was a “good example of teamwork”, with up to 40 people from different agencies and different countries working on the research.