I have 9 baby pinks that are about 2 days old and have been receiving little to no care from their 2 mothers. The litters were born less then 24 hours apart, so I can't tell them apart, but neither mother seems to be doing much for the babies at all. Every time I've checked (about 2x/day) the babies have been cold and most of them had no visible milk bands. More than half of the original number have died already.

I also have another litter in another tub that was born the same day. Those are doing great. I decided to try fostering the 9 remaining pinks from the bad mothers with the good mother. I took most of her babies out temporarily (I'm keeping them warm in a little pouch up against my body) because the abandoned ones are pretty weak and I didn't want them to have to compete with their foster sibs until they got some food in them. I'm going to check the situation in an hour and decide what to do from there.

I know others have done this successfully, and was hoping for any tips.

Also, the 2 bad mothers are both first time moms. I haven't had any other issues with my bloodlines being good mothers. Most of them, including these 2, came from a 1.3 group, so they should have good mothering genes. Are these 2 likely to figure it out next time? Anything I can do to help them figure it out? Like would pairing them with an experienced mother instead of leaving these 2 together work?