Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This same message is posted on the corn forum. I'm going to use a climbing branch for one of my snakes, that was previously used for a wild caught obsoleta. I know that to kill the bacteria/parasites, I'm supposed to bake the branch at 350, but for how long? Is it half an hour or an hour?

Baking is unnecessary. Buy yourself a can of Provent-a-Mite and simply liberally spray the entire surface of the branch. It will kill any creepy-crawlies you want to get rid of. Also, you are not restricted to the size of branch you want to use because it won't fit in your oven. You can get Provent-a-Mite from www.pro-products.com
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Matt Campbell
Animal Keeper, Small Mammal/Reptile House
Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago, Illinois

Assistant Curator
Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, Illinois

but what about molds, fungi and whatnot from branches found in the woods?
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- Happy herping!

KE

to get molds, fungi, and such off the wood you'll need to soak it in a 5% bleach solution. to bake it i'd put it in there at 300 or so for an hour. just keep an eye over it to make sure it isnt scorched... depending on the size it may only take half an hour.

but as matt suggested, provent a mite works wonders. spray it down and let it dry and anything on it will be dead.
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-Chris

The reason mainstream thought is thought of as a stream is because it's so shallow. -George Carlin

A fool doesn't learn. A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Which one are you?

My Website
Rat/Corn snake care sheet I wrote

Current snakes:
0.1 Licorice Stick Black Rat (Lola)
1.0 Black Rat (Frankie)
1.1 Texas Bairds (Jose and Rosa)
0.1 Blue Beauty (Brunhilde)
1.0 Green Tree Python (Claudius)... coming soon

I had a bad experience baking wood. I put a thick large piece of drift wood I found in my oven at 300 degrees After about 5 minutes I smoked out my entire house and had nothing but a black charred stick when it was all said and done. I now do what the above reply suggest and use a mite killer for the bugs and a bleach solution for the microbes making sure I rinse everything thourouly.

I wonder why that happened. I once found a knot hole that made a perfect house for my timor monitor, and I baked it at 300 for a while, and that was that. I bet that baking the wood only works if it is damp?
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- Happy herping!

KE