Sanitizing Foliage

[skaplan86]

I'm a brand new snake owner and will get some pics of my ball and setup once I get it all situated and can take a breath from school.

I live across the street from a winery and they are doing all the pruning right now so I was thinking this will be a fantastic way to pick up some wooded stuffs for the tank. The clippings are smaller than a dime so I took a few of em and twisted em together. Popped em in the oven to dry em out and kill the bacteria and see how much smoke I could get into my appt without setting off the smoke detector and piss off the neighbor and... you see where this is goin...

What temp and how long should I do this at? 450 was obviously way too hot so I was thinkin like 300 or 350... Do that for an hour or so and then sand all the dried bark off...

Anybody know anything about this or where to find more information?

Thanks!
Sam (and George)

[Pandora]

Seems like you got it down pretty well with the baking. 350 for 15-20 minutes is fine. If you really want, you can use a biodegradable disinfectant without any ammonia based substances or chemicals to treat the wood and then bake it afterwards. I used a 1:10 ratio for bleach and water for my driftwood, then rinsed it in water, and then baked it on 2 different occasions.

[skaplan86]

nice to know i'm on the right track... what about to bind the pieces of wood together? is just some fishing line ok? i'm sure I could do a asthetically pleasing knot in some rope if I needed to, but basically i need to find a way to bundle a bunch of sticks together... Wish lived near the ocean to pick up some driftwood... maybe i will check craigs list or somethin...

Thanks!

[Pandora]

nice to know i'm on the right track... what about to bind the pieces of wood together? is just some fishing line ok? i'm sure I could do a asthetically pleasing knot in some rope if I needed to, but basically i need to find a way to bundle a bunch of sticks together... Wish lived near the ocean to pick up some driftwood... maybe i will check craigs list or somethin...

Thanks!

I'm not sure exactly how you'd do it but I'd make 110% sure that there's no way the snake can injure itself on the fishing line. That stuff can be really sharp! And small scales would get caught easily. I wouldn't recommend it. I don't think the vet bills are worth it if anything should go wrong. Be on the safe side and grab some reptile vines or reptile safe sticks from the pet store.