Hello,

I have had my two garters for 2 years now, and the female never showed much interest in the male's courting attempts.
I noticed early this week she was behaving strange, and sure enough yesterday at work I got a call from my brother saying that she starting giving birth.

I use aspen shavings for my snakes and I was worried this may be too dry for the babies. So I bought a 5.5 gal tank with a little hide and water dish, and laid paper towel as substrate. I dug through the aspen to find the babies and put them in the new tank. There are 13 babies (2 albinos), plus one that was already dead when I came home (never made it out of the sac ). I tried cutting up some pinkies to feed them, but none of them seem interested.

Being the first time I have had babies, I have some questions
1. Is 13 babies too much for a 5.5 gal tank?
2. I heard they need moisture, what would you recommend? So far I placed a couple of damp paper towel balls, one in the enclosure and outside.
3. I have also heard that sometimes they do not eat for 10 days. From your experiences, is this usually the case?
4. Can they overheat if I am using an under the tank heater?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.