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Taiwan's cloned cows moo-ving forward

A group of cloned cows graze at the Livestock Research Institute in Tainan County yesterday. PHOTO: CNA

The nation's cloned cows, created by scientists for the Council of Agriculture in 2003 and 2004, are healthy and two of them have given birth, researchers declared yesterday.

The scientists added that the cloned cows have demonstrated high performance in terms of both milk quality and quantity.

Animals from the Ju-yi cow "family" were cloned with ear cells from the same cow, which was born in August 1998.

According to scientists in charge of the cloning program, Ju-yi No. 2 delivered a male calf weighing 46kg on Dec. 13 last year, while Ju-yi No. 4 gave birth to a female calf weighing 36kg on Feb. 4. Two other cloned cows are pregnant and are expected to give birth later this month and in April.

Photos of four cloned cows and two new-born calves were released to the media yesterday.

Wang Cheng-taung (王政騰), director of the Livestock Research Institute, said the cloned cows' ability to reproduce demonstrated that their physiological functions were intact.

"The success eliminates doubts about the fertility and health of cloned animals," Wang said.

The cows were also producing good yields of milk, he said.

"Ju-yi No. 2 and No. 4 produce about 30kg of milk a day. We estimate that each can produce about 10,000kg of milk annually. On average, cows produce about 7,200kg of milk annually," Wang said.
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