No. Use the actual thing.Good idea. Borris is pretty good about avoiding non-edibles, but he hasn't encountered wood chips yet. My dad does a ton of wood working, do you think some wood scraps would be a good substitute for a test?
But...because an animal can suddenly start to eat anything at any time, I won't use anything that could be confused as food and can't be digested/passed if munched on. Morla's never gone for the cypress mulch in my yard before--and when she's outside, I'm right beside her the whole time, so I'd see her if she had. My dog, Tidus, went 9 long years of life and then one fine October day in 2017, decided steel wool would be delicious. (They were new pads, used to stop up some cracks in my garage to keep out any mice.) Luckily I stopped Morla in time, but with Tidus, well...we didn't see it happen, and didn't know anything was amiss w/ him until the impaction 3 days later.
It was an extensive surgery (he was cut open along his entire abdomen and had staples and stitches in!) with a week long, intensive recovery. I can't even imagine having tortoise impaction surgery and the ensuing, slooooooow recovery!