Bark for hides

I went down to Petsmart to find some supplies and crickets last week and I noticed that all they had for cork bark was flats. I've seen the tubes before but my slings are quite small and all the tubes I've seen were a bit too big to fit in these little guys enclosures. I live in a pretty heavily wooded area and I'm thinking about just going out and snagging some bark from some of the local trees, cooking it to prevent stowaways and using that. We have quite a few mimosa trees around here and the bark strips really easily. Once dried it becomes very stiff and would make an excellent tube. My question is, would there be any problem with using local tree barks? I mean aside from pine or cedar or any other aromatic wood that is. I think mimosa would be a great bark but I don't know anything about it's toxicity or lack thereof. I do see ants all over them so I don't think they'd be too toxic. Should I try to find something else?

There could be pesticide issues with wild bark

You can get the flat cork bark and use a hot glue gun to make about any shape hide you want, if your crafty

Thanks for the reply. Most of the places around here are untouched woods, pesticide free. Most of it is too heavily wooded to get a sprayer into. In fact I don't even like hunting most of these areas because it's so brushy but that's where the scorpions live so I do what I must lol.

What about leaves? I use the plastic, vine leaves as hides for my smallest slings and with the exception of my LPs (who just like to web and throw dirt over them) it works pretty well.

That's a good idea. I think I'll look around the fake plant departments and see what looks good. Thanks for the reply

I realize this thread is a bit old, but I wanted to share this for future reference. I picked up some branches from the great out-of-doors a while back and was baking them (after soaking them with a bleach and water mixture) to sanitize for my GBB cages. While pulling them out of the oven some of the bark pieces snapped off and a light bulb went off in my head. I knew they'd make great terrestrial sling hides so I threw them in with my B smithis and B boehmei. They seem to love 'em because I frequently see them sitting on top of the bark, but I have yet to see them excavate underneath.

As long as its not for a sling avic. (IME)

A light bulb just went off in my head. Let the bark speak for itself. Strip some pieces off. Look at the bark detritus. Do a census of the animals and organisms living in and under the material. From mites to caterpillars, the broader the variety of species thriving in their environment, the less chance of there being some inherent toxin issues. Compare to redwood, camphor, eucalyptus and cascara bark as examples, where a very limited or even no animal / organism population thrives.