Safest branches?

[legitimatehypnotist]

So I live in the Adirondacks and hike quite often.
I occasionally pick up a nice branch here and there for the snakes, but because spring is coming, I've been seeing a lot more pine, and i refuse to use pine AT ALL for my snake's tanks.
I will note that I thoroughly sterilize and kill any pests on the branches in a week long process involving bleaching and baking, but I would like to know, do any of you guys have any tips as to what types of branches, A.) work best and B.) ARE THE SAFEST!
Like, how can I identify a cedar branch just by looking at it and not accidentally take it home?
Right now I have mostly oak and twisted saplings in the tanks, but my lavender is getting too big for her climbing branches.
Any tips?

 

[Stephan Grundy]

I'd look for hardwood. Oak, ash, hawthorn, birch, beech, fruit trees (I use apple in mine since I have a bunch of old apple trees), and holly should all be well-suited to your snake. Regretfully I'm not as familiar with the North American flora.
The first test with unidentified wood, by me, is cut it a bit and take a good whiff. The resinous woods, which present a hazard to your snake either through aromatic chemicals or oozing resin (snakes + sticky = bad), generally have a distinct if pleasant odour. You should be able to recognise pine, cedar, and juniper by smell, or at least recognise that this is an aromatic wood and hence quite likely unsuited to snake (if you know what the specific local trees that might present a hazard are, you could even carry chips in your pocket to compare aromas). The three likeliest candidates for snake-unsafe branches are probably pine, cedar, and juniper, and they all have pretty distinctive scents even when dry (ever stuck your head in a cedarwood chest?).
Any little trails of dried resin, like you particularly get on pine, are also a good clue that this wood is probably not snake-healthy.
Basically I'd eighty-six anything you can recognise as an evergreen except for holly - yew doesn't have much of an odour, but it does have the potential when warmed to release toxins that are potentially harmful to humans, and quite possibly fatal to snakes in a small enclosed area.
For fallen branches from unidentified trees, you might find it helpful to get a book on local flora which describes the barks of different types of trees, and then go out and find the trees growing (much easier to identify with leaves or whatever!) so you can see the bark types in person and then hopefully be able to identify them on fallen branches when that's pretty much what you have to go by.

 

[legitimatehypnotist]

THANK YOU!

 

[Justine66]

I used grape wood in my tank.

wild grape vines can be found all over here.. they looks likes vines, huge vines that crawl up trees from the ground. they are flimsy when small but the thicker vines can easily support a corn!

I cut some down, baked and bleached them, bored out some holes in the ends and hot glued suction cups into the holes.

stick it to the tank and your good to go!
my boy loves his!