Using Wood Branches - Does Wood Type Matter?

I went to my parents house yesterday, and my mom has a ridiculous amount of animal supplies so I always dig through her stuff to see if there’s anything I can use.

I found a wood perch that I thought would look nice in my BP enclosure. I asked her about it and she said it was a branch she found in the wood that she had my stepdad cut down for her to use for her chickens a while ago. So I took it home and washed it and scrubbed it down with some steel wool, then I baked it at 275* for 30 minutes.

I don’t know what type of wood it is, so I just wanted to check and make sure it would be okay to use.. It did have a scent when I was baking it, like there was maybe some sort of oils evaporating? It just gave off a woodsy smell kind of like if someone was cooking food with wood chips.

Any advice? And if it is okay to use, do I need to do anything else to it beforehand?

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I think if the oils have been baked off it will be safe.

Afterall, pine shavings are used a lot for temperate snake species as they've been baked / dried.

But the oils from pine are toxic.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valyrian

I think if the oils have been baked off it will be safe.

Afterall, pine shavings are used a lot for temperate snake species as they've been baked / dried.

But the oils from pine are toxic.

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Yeah, that makes sense. I’m not sure this is even pine? I wouldn’t begin to know how to tell the wood type etc from just a branch haha.


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One to avoid is cedar, because of the irritating & possibly toxic oils. That looks pretty safe though, & if you can't smell anything, I'd use it.

One thing you could do is to coat it with non-VOC clear waterproofing, to seal the wood; that would also make it easier to wash off feces etc.
But it's not essential. I use natural branches from the trees in my yard (not pine or cedar) & they're fine. Once in a while, I'll find some light-
colored powder under a branch in use...that's from a wood-boring beetle that came with the branch, lol. Won't hurt the snake & can't go any-
where.