Please help. I noticed wood is being chewed in my a.chalcodes enclosure

[jbooth]

What about baking it? Like 200 for 20 min or longer if you are really worried. Then you wouldn't have to worry about toxic wood. It shouldn't be treated with anything if it's for pets.

You could. Looks like pine, and pine beetles to me, they are already no danger to the T., maybe to the furniture or the environment. The problem is it leaves all the dead insects in holes in the wood to rot away, and guess what's coming for them? mites. I'd toss it afterwards either way. I meant dunk it and toss it.

 

[biteybitey]

I'd take it back and get a refund. It has some type of wood boring beetle in it.

This

Those wood dust OP sees probably from the tunnels the wood beetles are making. I have similar driftwoods like that that has those black beetles that dig tunnels in the wood. I was curious one time and dug out the beetle and it was larger than what I expected they would be

 

[Wolfram1]

exept i doubt any store would give a refund on wood like this half a year after the fact...

honestly, your best bet is not to buy decorative wood in the first place

 

[slocoj91]

It's unlikely that it came from the manufacturer/treatment plant like that. At some point in the supply chain something has gotten onto or into a groove in the wood. Those grapevines have some tight fold areas something could easily hide. Chances are there were eggs or something on it already at the store, unless your substrate wasn't new/sterilised.

Beware, btw, that I've read of a number of chemicals like pesticides where unless they were rinsed off a product entirely they will be more potent after baking. I always see baking mentioned, but wouldn't use it on anything that may have been treated with anything harmful that wouldn't naturally break down into harmless things when heated.

If the branch was a 'store brand' then they should still contact their supplier unless they treat them themselves. There are usually margins built in to allow refunds in case of issues like this, but 6 months on can be unlikely to happen. They should still want to trace it though. If it had a tag on, like Exoterra, Komodo, etc, I'd let them know and usually keep tags etc for a bit so I have batch numbers in case they're needed.

Curiosity would absolutely mean I'd be putting it into a secure container and seeing what emerged, though.

 

[jbooth]

In 6 months, they could have simply come in the window and found the wood.. I've seen beetles in here that looked like boring beetles, they fit right through the screen. Never seen wood chewing though, except the OBT. It's determined to keep a hole at the top of the enclosure, no matter how big it gets.