Critters (eek)

I think baking would work to kill any bugs that may be in the mulch. However, it would also totally dry out the mulch, but one of the advantages of cypress is the moisture it holds. You could just re-wet it. Boiling probably does a better job of sterilizing the mulch, but totally sterile isn't necessary, unless you are planning on doing surgery, or maybe for egg tubs. The downside of boiling is of course the opposite of baking; instead of too dry you end up with too wet. You could also just treat your enclosure with Provent-a-mite each time you add new mulch. Whichever method works for you should be fine.

I am pretty sure you are in no danger of your kitchen catching on fire. I looked it up once (before giving a piece of drift wood the oven treatment) and if I remember correctly, the combustion point of wood was higher than my oven would go. Just to be safe, I do recommend using the lowest setting, and set a timer so you don't forget about it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Laooda

Be careful baking stuff... I caught moss on fire last year in the oven. :oops:

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OK, I hate it when I get a phone call in the middle of writing a post, then finish the post, but in the meantime someone has posted something that alters what I would have said in my post, but so much time elapsed between their post and my post that people are going to think it must have been there before I started posting.

I totally retract my statements about baking stuff in the oven being safe. I highly suspect that the difference here is that moss would catch fire more easily than wood, but I'm not an expert, so I'll leave the research up to you.

My understanding is that most mites (dust mites, animal mites and so forth) need certain temps in order to hatch eggs and to survive to reproduce themselves. From what I can gather anything much below 35F and above 105F should do it. Personally if you have access to a larger chest freezer (pick up an old, used one off craigslist) I'd just store the cypress in the freezer and bring it out to come to snake room temp when needed.

You can, of course, just pre-treat it with P.A.M.