Separating baby from mum

Question
Hi
We bought a "male" syrian from the pet shop who then had babies!
She only had 3 to start with and last week we found one dead in the cage.  
We were unsure exactly when she had them and guess it to be about 16-18 days ago.  The cage was cleaned out yesterday and there were 2 babies left.  One quite large one and another very small.  I have come home today to find the body of the smaller one.  I am now worried that she may attack the other one.  We have ssen it eating hamster food and drinking water is it too soon to move it to a separate cage??

Answer
Dear Tracey,
thank you for your question.
It's very possible that the babies were not healthy or that there is some kind of genetic problem which caused the babie's death. Of course it's also possible that the mum is too inexperienced and/or stressed to raise her kids properly, but I would still leave the baby with her. The smaller one sounds like it was the runt of the litter anyway and I would assume that it was not killed by the mother.

Offer her plenty of animal protein (dried silkworms, crickets, mealworms, brine shrimp, high quality dry dog food) and leave her alone as much as possible. The baby needs the mother to learn from her until it's 32 days old at least, if it's a female, it can stay with her up to six weeks. Err a bit on the side of caution if it's a male since they can breed when they are 32 days old.

I hope I was of some help to you
Jennifer