Driftwood, and other extras

When you guys talk about puttin driftwood or other stuff (besides like the 1/2 logs and stuff u can get in a pet store) in the tank (A) to help with humidity and (B) for looks/function... What all do you do to it before introducing it to the snakes enviroment?

I ask because I'd be afraid that a piece of driftwood (HIGHLY available in my area) might contain bacteria/fungus/insects/etc.... and wouldn't they be harmful or infect the snakes enviroment?

-Chris

Cook it! Seriously! Put it in the oven for a while, at a temp that won't catch it on fire. (200 or so) Keep an eye on it, but that should kill off anything living in it.

lol I read somewhere about cookin them, but I thought it was just BS lol. My thinkin was Wood + heat = Fire... but i guess at a low enough temperature it wouldn't catch fire.

How long would u leave it in at 200degrees?

I dont know how long you should leave it in there, but you should have some A-1 suace handy. :lol:

We need spell checker....that was suppose to read.....SAUCE

if it's small enough, or you can cut the wood into sections to be screwed together after, or just got a mongo pot, boiling for about 20 minutes would be the best way to kill all the little crawlies. Alot of bacteria and such can withstand surprisingly high temps.
However, if the piece is just too big, baking will probably be fine.........I've just learned to trust boiling for pretty much sterilizing the subject.

Would the same apply to pine mulch for substrate? Bake it like french fries lol.

Quote:

---

Would the same apply to pine mulch for substrate? Bake it like french fries lol.

---

I wouldn't use pine mulch, there have been alot of health issues related to pine and cedar mulch as substrate.
We use cypriss and it works great. We don't steralize it and have never hada problem. We always buy it fron the same place and the one time we didn't (found at gas station, trying to save a little time) and that bag was full of bugs. So you just have to find a good distributor.
As for baking and boiling, we usually boil too. (Don't boil rocks I learned the hard way...lol), we will bake rocks or larger peices of "furniture".
But that works for us
Thanks
Rusty

I haven't learned the hard way ... why not boil rocks?

cause they EXPLODE lol... did that a couple times at scout camp when i was little (for fun, we knew what would happen).

The moisture inside the rocks heats up and vaporizes causing the rock to explode to release the pressure.... Same concept why you DO NOT deep fry a FROZEN or partially thawed turkey.... unless u want a flaming turkey shooting across the yard.

BTW. Imma use the pine mulch i got in the yard this spring. I picked up a 3cubic foot bag of cypress and baked 8 pans of it for about 25 minutes on 225 degrees (till it was dry) then let it cool down before putting it in her tank. She loves it. Immediately after i put it in she was out exploring around. But the humidity is still kinda low. Do you guys actaully pour water on the mulch (making it damp/wet???) to hold humidity or what?

Thanks

-Chris

Cool ... exploding rocks! I never heard of that before, but my only experience with rock boiling is the story "Stone Soup" LOL. I did know about the turkey dangers, though, and am just waiting for a particular idiot I work with to try it.

yeah I found out about the flaming turkey in the newspaper the day after thanksgiving... aparently someone 3 blocks over was deep frying their turkey (I've never had deep fried turkey, but heard its AMAZING) and the turkey wasn't thawed out totally, and it shot out and landed on the roof (You deep fry them outside for safety reasons like this lol) and caught on fire, and burned like 2/3 of their house down.

-Chris

Wow. That's a heck of a turkey velocity. There's a guy I work with who is realllly gadgetty and he smokes and fries turkeys as well as making jerky and having little wandering robot cameras rolling around his house.

Rolling robot cams are awesome! (I've never actually seen any, but the concept is so Jetsons!)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Andariel

But the humidity is still kinda low. Do you guys actaully pour water on the mulch (making it damp/wet???) to hold humidity or what?

Thanks

-Chris

---

I wouldn't pour water on it. Wet substrate can cause blistering and scale rot. You could try a humidifier set up near the cage to get the ambient humidity up. Or just mist the cage once in a while, especially during a shed. Or just provide a humid hide during a shed.

And if you have a screen top, be sure to block off most of the screen with saran wrap or contact paper or something. That'll help hold in the moisture.

It is, isn't it? He's a genius and assembles things like that out of spare parts from work. He's not the same guy I expect would try to fry a frozen turkey, btw.