To bake or not to bake? Substrate questions....

lemunhed134 · #1 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 01:07 PM

Hey guys. I was really scared today when I looked in my new baby boa's enclosure and saw a tiny little white insect crawling around! Oh no, I hope its not a mite, so far I have only seen one and if it is a mite, its only in one of the pre-feeding stages but anyways, this got me thinking about treating substrate. I got the un heat treated repti-bark (the people at the petstore said that was the right choice, shows you to listen to them!). I have heard that some people put their substrate in the oven first to make sure its mite free? Should I be doing this, and if so what temps/how long? I want to do the best thing for my boa and make sure it stays happy and mite free!

unluckyseventeen · #2 (**permalink**) 10-20-2005, 11:21 PM

I've heard that freezing it will get rid of pretty much anything you don't want in there. I got mites once and it sucks. I quickly swapped newspaper in for substrate as it's easy to clean, replace and it's really cheap.

Not sure what wood your repti-bark is made of... if it's anything besides Cypress or Aspen, just chuck it.

DeadIrishD · #3 (**permalink**) 10-20-2005, 11:54 PM

I always go with To bake bro

tmfleo1 · #4 (**permalink**) 10-21-2005, 12:24 AM

If I recall right there was a previous post on this matter

Well you want to bake it for aprox 20 minutes at aprox 300 degrees

lemunhed134 · #5 (**permalink**) 10-23-2005, 05:09 PM

Sounds good. Repti bark is a common substrate made of fir I believe. Its not very aromatic, and is claimed not to irritate/harm snakes, it says its ok for them right on the package. However it is not heat treated, so hence the mites. Anyways I guess I'll go get some aspen in another week or two when I make sure my snake is mite free, and bake it/freeze it alot.

Genevieve · #6 (**permalink**) 10-23-2005, 06:24 PM

I bake my repti bark and all the wood furniture in the oven at 200 degrees for about 1/2 hour and I have never had a problem.

jjmetro · #7 (**permalink**) 10-23-2005, 10:36 PM

Even if you buy any kind of substrate from a petstore that sells reptiles you have a chance of geting mites from it. even buying frozen mice can bring the mites in. I buy live mice(to prevent mites) Prekill them and freeze them. this way, no worms no mites and no live food for my boa. i had mites a while back. treated the snake and bought new repti bark, low and behold the mites were back! after i froze the bark i keep a bag of enough of the stuff to replace all of his substrate in one shot. then i spot clean the old stuff and refreeze it. rotating the stuff works pretty good.

tmfleo1 · #8 (**permalink**) 10-23-2005, 10:53 PM

I'm not sure if freezing will work to kill the mites it just might make them dormant until it is thawed out but baking it will kill them !!!!.

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