there are many things that can come into your cage with naturally collected wood; ants, ticks, mites, termites, mold, lichens, fungus.....the list goes on and on. That being said, I have been told that if you boil something before you put it into the cage, it should clean all that stuff out of it.......that also being said, real wood holds moisture and promotes all sort of little nasty growing colonies of stuff that can't be good for our snakes...buy the synthetic wood made from plastic if you want it for your pet.