BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Now that the weather has been clearing up from all this snow, I've been thinking about heading down to the creek to look for some good wood/branches to use for my two skinks' enclosures. I had a few questions first though
Does anyone else use real wood in their enclosures?
Are there any types of wood/branches/trees that I should stay away from? I've read that any conifers are a nono, not sure about others though.
How do you guys that use natural wood disinfect? bake? boil? whats best?

I've been looking around for some nice,biggg pieces of wood to purchase for my skinks but I can't bring myself to spend $50+ on a piece of wood or two if I can go out and find some nice stuff for just a little bit of work. So if anyone has any advice for using natural wood, I would greatly appreciate it!

I've got a friend that goes surfcasting and brings me all kinds of driftwood he finds on the beach. I've been using in my community tank and my bearded dragon's tanks for years with no issues. I wash it and bake it in the oven if the pieces are small enough, larger ones I let the sun take care of in back of my pickup. Never had any problems with bugs or whatnot. Also found some nice pieces while visiting family in Florida. Only problem is escaped superworms will bore into it and eat it. Prices for this stuff are ridiculous, especially on Long Island where it is free. See what others say about this, but as for me I've had no problems with it.

I have some wood in my enclosure. I baked it to clean it up. I've heard of people also soaking in bleach solutions, then clean water, and letting it dry. I think anything short of either of those won't be enough to really clean it. It's very porous so normal wipedowns won't be enough.

As for types of woods, most woods are OK except for cedar, pine and eucalyptus.

If you find stuff outside you also need to think about any chemicals it may have been exposed to, like pesticides or other toxic stuff. And bugs of course, but baking or bleach would take care of them I imagine.

Yeah, when I find some good stuff I will probably soak/boil it and bake it in the oven as well just to be safe. I've read up on the cleaning techniques so I think i should be good in that department.

I am mainly concerned with the type of wood that is unsafe to use. I am confident I will clean it well enough, but I am certainly no tree expert so I want to make sure whatever I use won't harm my blueys. I had read that pine and cedar weren't good, I now know to add eucalyptus to the list.

Woods are more toxic to aquatic animals as poisons leach into the water

Conifers of any kind are not good as they off-gas fumes that can damage respiratory systems, I think eucalyptus is not recommended for similar reasons

Walnut, locus, Kentuckey coffee tree and several ornamental trees have poisonous leaves, bark and/or heart wood but I doubt your skink would injest it or if they did, enough to cause a problem

Okay, so ceders, pine, eucalyptus and conifers in general are no good.

Now if I go searching and find driftwood without really knowing the source or tree it came form, I'm guessing my best bet would be to just leave it and not take the chance right? Would go out searching today but it just started snowing! thought we were finally done with this weather

Driftwood is so dried out it probably wouldn't matter, as all the oils would be gone, but not sure about this one.
I never even gave a second thought as to what kind of tree mine came from. Maybe I should have, I guess.

I use drift wood in my enclosure, no clue what it is tbh had it sitting in the garage for years, when i clean out my enclosure each month i soak it some bleach solution, then in normal water then i let it dry in the sun, i've had no issues with it and it seems to be my Bluies favourite spot to bask on and to hide under.

So, do you think as long as I find a decent piece of driftwood that looks pretty old and use the soaking/boiling method and the baking method then I should be okay regardless?