Wood Pieces for Terrarium

[Bogertophis]

I've always used wood I've found outside. I just bake it for about 2-3 hours at 250°. Kills any parasites and can't look more naturalistic than that.

And if you're worried about keeping it clean (or anything left inside or on it?) you can also coat it with a no-VOC waterproofing that dries clear to seal it from moisture too.

I only use real branches from nature: I sun-bake them for a while (no way to fit in my oven); I also spray them a couple times with diluted chlorhexidine (as used to clean my cages), repeatedly & let that sun-dry too. The only thing I've ever gotten from a branch is a wood-boring beetle that eats nothing but the branch anyway, so if you see a little pile of mysterious fine powdered wood, that's what it is, & it cannot hurt the snake. They'd probably be destroyed by baking the smaller branches, but in my case, they can hide deep enough in the branch to survive the sun & disinfectant.

My favorite wood is a huge & curvaceous branch that I dragged home from paddling a kayak down a nearby river...too beautiful to resist...my biggest rat snake often snoozes on it. It's shaped rather like a snake anyway so he blends with it.