Mother eating pups?

[Sky11]

I know its normal for a mother to eat dead pups.  But I'm not sure the pup was dead-  the whole litter as far as I could tell was fine only half an hour ago.
The babies are only a day old,  and now after having eaten one of them,  she's digging in the corner and just leaving them there.
What do I do?  Is she stressed out and going to kill another or am I just overreacting and that pup must have been dead?
Please help ASAP.

[Sky11]

Now she's in the nest with them, luckily not eating any of them. Is it safe to assume the pup was dead or sick or something and she won't do that again?

[betty]

It is very likely that the pup was ill or some other reason where the mother didn't think it was 'worth' raising it.

However, some mothers can do it for any number of reasons including age or stress, so I personally would leave her be in a quiet place, making sure she has plenty of good mothering food and clean water and wait and see what happens - but then I believe in leaving the mother to it in her own way.

Others might say that you need to do a whole series of other things to ensure they gain weight and stuff, but at 1 day old there would be very little you could do anyway.

Hopefully someone else can advise on what else you could do if you wanted a more active role to give you some other options, but I leave them to it for at least the first week anyway and see where you are after that.

Lets hope it was just a one off....

[crittercrazy]

Oh,  I'm sorry that happened.   I don't have anything else to offer other then what Betty said. . .  but is she doing okay now?

[Sky11]

Thanks for your replies. Now that I think about it, one of the pups kept getting left out, and I returned it to the nest twice. (After washing my hands thoroughly and distracting the parents with treats) Could it be she still freaked out over me touching it, or that it was sick and that's why she kicked it out?

Anyway, for now the rest of them are all fine, though when I got home after being gone a few hours this morning one of the pups was not in the nest and the parents (who knew it was there) were not putting it back. I waited awhile but they still didn't, so I scooped up the bedding around it and moved it back. She seems to be taking care of it now.

So I thought I would ask. . . are there any other reasons she might be leaving the pups out of the nest? Is that normal, for her to leave it there for some time before going and getting it? (Like last night she had all of them in different places, and was digging in the corner, but I left them and when I woke up everybody was in the same nest)

Oh and I have been trying to reduce the stress level by leaving the room she is in closed and dark with a towel draped over half the tank. She has plenty of food and water. . . the food isn't quite high enough protein/fat for a mother, since I could find any and my plan was to supplement with mealworms/etc., but she won't eat those. Would she abandon the pups because of that? Should I look harder for a better food mix?
Sorry this is long, and thanks again for replying.

[betty]

Sorry, I didn't see your update until now - is everything ok now?