Branches

[ThatOnePossum]

Hello, I have a question regarding sticks for enclosures. I want to get a crested gecko as my first reptile, and the enclosure I have is very large (I think around 24wide 18deep 36tall?), so branches would be extremely costly to buy. I have some that I picked up on a fishing trip by a creek, but I don’t know what kind of wood they are. The bark is long gone on them, so no identifying them by that, sadly. Are they safe to use, or should I just toss them? I know driftwood is used a lot, so I wasn’t sure?
(By the way I intend to get an adult/subadult gecko, I don’t want to put a baby gecko in a massive enclosure)

 

[Sphex]

My advice if you're wanting to be super safe about it would be to find some way to bake them or put them in some boiling water to make sure anything that could be on them would now be dead. But that can sometimes be a real pain depending on size and shape of the wood. I have a really nice hmm root I dug out that I'm still not entirely sure how to sterilize due to odd shape and size. But not being in as much of a hurry to use it I opted to just keep it indoors and off the ground figuring logically any protein eating bug would just leave and then whatever could possibly be left would likely just be nibbling on bark and likely do no harm to whatever ends up living in the terrarium.

 

[ThatOnePossum]

My advice if you're wanting to be super safe about it would be to find some way to bake them or put them in some boiling water to make sure anything that could be on them would now be dead. But that can sometimes be a real pain depending on size and shape of the wood. I have a really nice hmm root I dug out that I'm still not entirely sure how to sterilize due to odd shape and size. But not being in as much of a hurry to use it I opted to just keep it indoors and off the ground figuring logically any protein eating bug would just leave and then whatever could possibly be left would likely just be nibbling on bark and likely do no harm to whatever ends up living in the terrarium.

Alright, thanks. Unfortunately several sticks are too long to bake, so I’ll have to just set them out.
Originally I was meaning about wood types. I know softwoods are a no, but I’m not clear on wether that makes the sticks I have too risky to use. Any thoughts?

 

[Sphex]

Oh I see what you're saying, mean honestly i'm not sure why any wood wouldn't work in a terrarium. Soft woods just won't last very long and will decay, but if you have some isopods they'll just use it as a place to sit and have breakfast basically. Don't actually think the wood itself would do any harm.

What you don't want is Cedar, Juniper, Larch, Pine, Redwood, Spruce, Yew, and those sorts of more pine-type tree's. Then avoid anything that might have been sprayed with pesticides like fruit tree's and the like then anything with Thorns.

But soft woods /shrugs/ I don't actually think there's a problem there, they'll just decay a whole lot quicker, which might be an ok thing if ya have isopods.

General Rule of thumb I go by, if the tree ""Bleeds"" Don't use it. If its in a farm like apple tree's and such don't use it, if you can poke your finger on a thorn don't use it.