Is osage orange safe to use?

[brent]

Osage orange wood is really resistant to rot when wet, and grows in great shapes. There are tons of overgrown or dead hedges all over the place around here. The root systems of toppled trees are the most interesting parts, I think. The thing that concerns me is leaching of chemicals from the wood, the sawdust can be used to make a yellow dye and I heard the sawdust can be really bad to breathe as well. But I can't find any info one way or another about it's safety in a terrarium. Has anyone here ever used it?

The other type of wood I was thinking of using is black locust, also rot resistant but not as "driftwoody", anyone know anything about that either?

There is zero chance I will be buying wood when there is so much around for free.

[Kurt]

I have never even heard of it. Sorry.

[hyla]

I use the fruit from this tree/hedge to keep spiders away from the house. It works really well for that. I would say it is safe considering it grows all around and wild treefrogs such as grays are exposed to it. There is a bunch of hedges on my neighbors property and I agree they are interesting looking and would make neat specimens in an enclosure. Maybe if its natural state is altered by certain chemicals/treatments it may be harmful, like you said it is made into a dye, but just as is would probably be alright.

[SludgeMunkey]

No. Osage Orange wood contains toxic compounds. For a list of known safe wood for vivaria,read Caudata Culture Articles - Wood in Vivaria

[hyla]

Yikes! Thank goodness for Sludgemonkey, sorry Brent! My guess was not so good after all

[brent]

Thanks for the link and the replies. Osage was not listed at caudata, but one of the bird sites referenced there lists "bois de arc" (osage) as safe for birds (it is probably way too tough for them to peck apart I suppose). The safe wood list is not very long, ash, grape and bamboo being the only species available to me. Ash rots really fast when wet too, does it not acidify during decomp or something?

I am still not convinced that osage cannot be used safely though, there's just not enough info out there for me. There's controvery in the wooden spoon carving community too over the wood, some say that it is in fact safer because it does not absorb cooking liquids like non toxic hardwoods do. Others say it is not safe because of the chemicals in the wood. I don't know, but there are no reports of any sort of actual poisoning from the wood so I'm leaning towards it being safe or capable of being safe. I think adequate boiling and leeching time should do it.