I have a feeling the mother died not to starvation (or starvation alone), but to the stresses of it's home being torn down and put into what she thinks is new territory. Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. Post results please.
I'm personally against egg stripping. I do feel it is unnecessary stress unless the mother is fatally injured and stripping is a means to save the babies. To keep the females from thinning out too much while holding, make sure they get a good staple diet all the time. It's very natural for the females to fast. If they are fed well with a good healthy diet, thinning out would be minimal.
If you chose to rear the babies in another tank, just net her out gently and place her in an established tank for her to spit the babies out. Once the babies are out, she can go back into the main tank. Of course this would most likely require removing a good protion of the landscape in the tank.
A trick I found helpful is to understand their movements and predict their next move. Don't have the net swooping up their butts too quickly either. You'll never catch them...LOL. Keep a light swish of movement away from the target fish, but close by in a sort of loose corral. Coax her near a corner and come up from underneathe the fish and gently start moving up. Tip the handle end of the net down as you go up and then at the last moment, swoop the open end down and the handle end up as you make the final move for capture. If there's another fish in the path, get him too. You can release him back into the tank. If it fails, try again, but watch her moves and adjust strategy. They will do the same thing over and over and over again. Once you get that pattern down, you'll be able to get them with less disruption to the landscape...LOL. I've been chasing african cichlids in tanks for gosh...15 years. It does take practice LOL. Have fun
It'll sharpen the way you 'see'. Almost like how a hunter conditions to see his target among all the others. Africans cichlids are clever. You need strategy more than speed to catch them LOL.