Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was weedint the other day and noticed some dead branches on our magnolia tree. They are really knotty and twisty and would look really cool in the chameleon cage. Are they safe to use?
I know you need to wash and/or bake the branches before they are safe, but I didnt know if certain trees werent safe to use.
Would I have any probs do you think? If not what is the temp to bake at? The cleaning solution is 10:1 water:bleech right? I would probably bake if I can since I noticed some insect holed in it.

Thanks!
Erin
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1:1 Veileds (Gene and Aurora)
1:1 Albino Clawed Frogs (Phedre and Jos)
?? Fire belly toad (Harold)
Various cats and dogs

If its been dead for a while I bet it would be fine. For our cage's branches we used some old dead uprooted stumps for the roots. They are hard and almost clean when we pulled em off. After that I boiled water and dunked em repeatedly for about 10 seconds. Too bad I'm out of tree stumps now, it would be cool to make some chameleon space in the room.

I still want to make sure all the mites and such are out of it. But I cant seem to find the previous message posts about this stuff. Can someone refresh me on the temp to "bake" the branches on in the oven or the water bleech solution? Thanks!!

Erin
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1:1 Veileds (Gene and Aurora)
1:1 Albino Clawed Frogs (Phedre and Jos)
?? Fire belly toad (Harold)
Various cats and dogs

I was just looking for something different further down and it said a 10:1 bleach solution (I think thats 10 water to 1 bleach) to hot water. Then remove all the old rotting bark and you should be golden. Baking temp I didn't see.

I remember seeing something low like 125F to bake tree branches for 10 minutes or something...but dont take my wordd for it, don't blame me if your house burns down! (keep some water handy)

and yes, it's 10:1 bleach:water. you can even do 1:1:10 soap:bleach:water if there is a lot of dirt and dead bark to take off, the soap will make that job easier while the bleach disinfects.

Hehe fire extinguisher is standing by. Its a fairly dry old branch so the lower temp the better probably!
Ill have to wait for my parents to go out though, I can just see one of them looking in the oven....
"Ummm hunny?"

Erin
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1:1 Veileds (Gene and Aurora)
1:1 Albino Clawed Frogs (Phedre and Jos)
?? Fire belly toad (Harold)
Various cats and dogs