temperature to bake wood to kill parasites?

hi well im wondering what temperature to bake the wood at to kill off any parasites so i can use it in my enclosure. anyone know what temp to bake it at and how long to bake it?

..I've heard of baking rocks, but not wood. I'm not sure I'd do this because of fire reasons..I'm intrested to see the answer on this one...

i remember seeing something about baking the wood at like 100 degrees f but i cant remember the exact tempeture i also heard you can bleach it but im not to sure about that one.

Ohh..Okay..I thought you were thinking baking it at like 350-400 degrees..that didn't sound safe to me..LOL.
What I do is take a gallon milk jug and use 1 cup of bleach to a gallon of water. I use that to clean things in her viv..I rinse it until I can't smell bleach anymore..and knock on wood..LOL..she's had no problems at all.
As far as using that on wood..I'm not sure because wood is porus, and may hold the bleach solution.

..sorry empty..I use empty well rinsed gallon milk jugs..and put the solution in a labeled spray bottle.

Wooden accessories can be baked at 200º F - 250º F for 2-3 hours to kill any mites/eggs on or in the wood.
See..I love this forum..you learn new stuff everyday!

thanks sooo much

I bake my wood at 300 to 350* for 1/2 an hour and have never even come close to a fire. I soak the wood first then bake dry it. For rocks I just boil them.

Really?..I'm sorry..the ex was a firefighter and he has made me a neurotic mess about fires in the house.. so when I saw wood and heat..I thought uh oh. But after googling the question you can put wood accessories in the oven and it won't catch on fire..who'd of thought?...LOL.

Yeah, I freaked out when my hubby stuck the wood in the oven to dry after cleaning. I totally thought it would catch on fire and burn down the house! It didn't. :mrgreen: Thank goodness. Most of the wood you get from petstores it already treated though. So you shouldn't have to put it in the oven. I guess if you are getting wood from your back yard or something you would need to debug it though.

Rottnbull even the wood you buy in the stores you should bake. The reason being that mites/bugs/parasites are everywhere and there are many varieties of them as well. You wouldn't want to put something into your beardies home without making sure it is bug/parasite/chemical free first. Plus when deep cleaning your viv's it is a good idea to bake you wood too just incase of any lingering bacteria from beardie poops.

Hi Barbara!

I hadn't thought of baking it to make it chemical free. Will that work or should we wash it first then bake before putting it in the viv? We do it after every deep cleaning, that is what my husband did and it freaked me out. I really thought the house would burn down by putting wood in an oven. It didn't. I will from now on when I purchase new wood though. I am actually hoping to get some cool wood and/or branches that will look good in the vivs when we go camping this summer. I will definitly be cleaning and baking those, and any new that I get from the pet stores from now on.

Stephanie

Stephanie I usually soak mine first and then bake it, bought or not.
I hope that baking helps with the chemicals too. If you think about it where do they get all of that nice grape vine wood at? Do they grow the grape vines just for this purpose without pesticides or do they collect it from the farmers land when he plows up his crop of old grape vines? If so these are saturated in pesticides.
For these reasons I've always been a bit leary of the wood. :roll:

Yeah, I had never thought of it before. I just figured that the tag said treated and it was good.

Stephanie

Actually I just finished baking some wood today! How about that! Call me over zealous but here is what I did to ensure that the wood was germ and parasite free. First I waited to find a thick branch that fell off the tree after the ground had frozen over, so it wasn't moldy or anything. I went out with my handsaw and axe and cut off the desired peices. I carried those 4 peices into the bathtub which I poured about a quater bottle of bleach in (I know crazy amount right) and let it soak for a half a hour, then scrubbed with a hard brush, drained the tub, filled it again added only a little bleach, some dawn and salt (salt water is known to kill a number of land based parasites) and let it soak again for 30 minutes and the scrubbed it, drained the tub again, turned on the shower head and rinsed it off really good then took the wood and but it in the oven at 300F for 45 minutes, then wipped it off with a antibacterial wipe (wipe out) and then dried it again with a hair dryer. I'm pretty sure nothing could survive that kind of torture so the wood is quite clean. I am so evil to germs :lol: