Working with fresh wood - not twigs

[Stormcrow]

As i allready stated in another post I made on this forum, i try to do everything to make my chins happy in their new home. Since I have em for only 2 days now, and they have lots of stuff left to explore, they seem to enjoy their new home.

I want to keep em busy, give them lots of healthy and new things to play with, without exposing them to anything that might hurt them.

So what is relatively low in cost, is healthy for them and guarantees lots of fun in exploring and chewing? The answer is simple; wood.
I see lots of people here on this site selling it or giving links to places where you can get it, but since I am from Europe - Belgium it ain't an affordable solution for me.

Where I live there are lots of petstores that sell chinchillas, but I still need to see the first pet store where they are experienced with them and where they sell the appropriate food (and not the guinea pig kind). The toys and wood they sell are not even worth mentioning: a few prepackaged dead old twigs and some reworked birdhouses.

I decided to go and look for wood in other places, garden centers gave no solution (we have some aquarium wood if you like? No tnx!) and getting it myself in the wild seemed no good plan neither since I am a lousy botanist.

Yesterday I went to our city park and went straight to the little office that houses the department that occupies itself with maintaining the park and surrounding woods. I showed them the "safe wood list" and to my surprise they were very willingly to help me, showed me the correct branches that were freshly cut off this week and gave em away for free.

A chainsaw was used to make them a bit smaller (40cm each, 16 inch if i am correct), after that I cleaned them under running water with a brush and I baked them in the oven.

(don't mind the product standing there, ofcourse i didn't use it )

First I baked at 200°C (392°F) just to make sure all the harmfull things (bugs and other living things) were gone. I did this for about half an hour, after that I turned down the oven to 75°C (167°F) and left them in a few hours (3+).

I left them to cool down, and a day later they look like this

I think they look dry enough, they should be clean, but I still doubt if these are safe for the chins.
Their are still some little dots of green moss that dint come off with scrubbing, now they are fully dried but still present. Would the logs be safe enough for the chins like this? Or should I give them another brush/bake? Or should I not give them alltogether?

I am 100% sure that this wood this tree was from was away from roads (it was in the forest behind the park), untreated with chemicals, and it was a tree that was on the safe list (but unfortunately I forgot the name!). The guy who provided it for me is the parks groundkeeper and he is busy with the maintenance on a daily basis). The wood was also "living wood" and not "dead wood", so apart from the little green mossy spots (that you can find on most trees imo) it is in mint condition.

What is your opinion? Did you allready gave wood in this condition? All feedback is greatly appreciated. Please remember that I don't do this mainly for the price, I just think it would be fun if I would find a safe way to provide my animals with stuff i got myself.

thanks in advance

 

[ChinnyMom]

if it came from a park in an urban area, i would be very very wary of it being sprayed at one point. remember - wood used for chins cannot have been sprayed at all during the whole life of the tree. that worker would likely not be able to tell you that, as the tree is most likely a lot older than them, and unless the city has pristine records on everything done to that particular tree, then i would not feel safe giving this wood to chins.

 

[Stormcrow]

Thanks for your fast answer Chinnymom!
Allthough I allready did quite a lot of work on them, I won't hesitate to throw em out if they are bad. Safety before everything.
Thing is, the city where I live has a big park and next to it there is a nature reservation where everything is maintained in a natural way, like everywhere in the world they make heavy publicity about how things are done there for nature preservation etc.

This + the fact that this area has always been forest, nothing else since ages, rules out the point of being threated with chemicals. However, cars pass and there is traffic in the vincinity (a few km away) so if you are talking about these fumes reaching the trees, then you are right.

 

[melbur10]

I have to agree with chinnymom, u won't know for sure it hasnt been sprayed, or what it was sprayed with some chemicals are even worse because they work systemically and are right 'in there'.
Also I personally don't trust that the branches you were given are indeed from a safe tree. Many people mistake trees as is, and with out seeing the tree and confirming with the leaves what it is I would not feel comfortable just taking some guys word for it. Bases on the bark it's also hard to tell because you wouldn't know the size/maturity/or location of the branches removed (different trees have different looking bark on the mature trunk compared to a mature branch and compared to a young branch)

One other point to be aware of is that chain saw chains are covered in oil, and you likely wouldn't want all your cuts made with one.

In terms of moss, once it's been scrubbed (I boil before baking) and baked any discovering from moss or lychen that has been cleaned off should not cause problems. Keeping in mind some lychens are toxic.

 

[jess32247]

I make sticks for my chin and never had a problem with it. I scrub them down well then soak them in hot water with a little bit of salt for a few hours, then they go in the oven at 200f for a couple hours and sit in there over night. Granted, I've only been doing it for a few months, but never had a problem.

Some of them do still have discoloring on them like some of yours does. I throw them out if I feel it's bad enough. I only treat little branches or twigs for her though. She goes crazy for them!