{"product_id":"extra-small-cork-bark","title":"Extra Small Cork Bark Pieces 100g","description":"\u003cp\u003eThese are cork offcuts, and they are too small to sell one at a time. A piece with enough flat face to work as a hide on its own belongs on the \u003ca href=\"\/products\/small-cork-bark\"\u003esmall cork bark\u003c\/a\u003e listing; everything here sits below that size. Curved shards, thin flakes, broken corners, all of it sound cork and none of it worth pricing individually. Selling by weight is the sensible way to do it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWhat 100g actually looks like\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe photograph on this listing shows a typical bag tipped out, and it is best read as an example instead of an inventory. Cork varies a great deal in thickness and density, so one bag can come out as a handful of chunky fragments and the next as twice that number of thin ones at exactly the same weight. The piece count is not something we are able to promise. The weight is. Every bag holds at least 100g of loose pieces, and where the scales land awkwardly it goes over that figure, never under.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eScaping with the small stuff\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA slab is a single structure. You put it down and it becomes one hide, one damp underside, one surface to graze. A bag of offcuts is a different proposition, because you are building with it. Wedged upright against the glass the pieces make narrow crevices; laid overlapping across the surface they give a broken, layered floor that a colony will work its way through; propped against a branch or a lump of wood they turn a bare corner into somewhere worth crossing. Every fragment is an irregular shape, so no two arrangements come out looking alike.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCork earns its place at ground level because it stands up to damp better than softer wood does, which is the same reason a slab is worth having. These will still be grazed and worn like anything else in a busy enclosure, and there is nothing wrong with that. Set alongside \u003ca href=\"\/products\/leaf-litter-1l\"\u003eleaf litter\u003c\/a\u003e and a scatter of \u003ca href=\"\/products\/lotus-pods\"\u003elotus pods\u003c\/a\u003e, they give the ground layer some height and shadow without taking up the floor space a slab would.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eSlings and smaller tarantulas\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe other setting these suit is spiderlings. A sling vial or a small acrylic box has no room for a slab, and many shop-bought hides are cut for an adult animal. A bag of mixed offcuts will usually turn up something of about the right size and curve to lean against the wall of a vial, making a covered gap the spider can back into and slip out of. The larger fragments do the same for juvenile roaches, or for any small culture that wants a bit of surface structure instead of bare plastic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eBefore it goes in\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe do not treat these before they leave us. No method of sterilising cork has ever been validated, and cork bought in from a shop carries little risk to start with. If you want the reassurance anyway, a few days in the freezer is the usual precaution against mites and their eggs, and it will not harm the material.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIf you do reach for the oven, keep it low and watch it. Cork begins to decompose from around 180°C, which puts the 200°C the hobby often reaches for above the line already, and the freezer sidesteps the question altogether. Let the pieces come back to room temperature, then spread them so some sit at the damp end and some at the dry, and leave them alone after that. If an enclosed retreat would suit you better than something to shelter beneath, the \u003ca href=\"\/products\/small-cork-bark-tube\"\u003ecork bark tube\u003c\/a\u003e is the same material in a hollow section.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PostPods","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57846961832318,"sku":null,"price":2.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0759\/0707\/2294\/files\/extra-small-cork-bark-pieces-100g-8537096.jpg?v=1786733714","url":"https:\/\/postpods.co.uk\/products\/extra-small-cork-bark","provider":"PostPods","version":"1.0","type":"link"}