China's Second Cloned Calf Doing Well

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, January 21, 2002

China's Second Cloned Calf Doing Well

China's second cloned calf, named "Keke" began walking Sunday morning after hours of medical treatment by scientists at the Shandong Zhongda Animal Embryo Engineering Center in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province. Keke made its first "moo, moo" sound two minutes later after being born and drunk nearly 2 kilograms of milk within half an hour.

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Keke was born at 3:30 pm last Saturday in Jinan through a Caesarean section but initially suffered breathing difficulties.

Scientists claimed that Keke, thankfully, made its first "moo, moo" sound two minutes later after being born and drunk nearly 2 kilograms of milk within half an hour.

Records show that China's first cloned calf was born at 9:25 amlast Friday, but was confirmed dead by scientists, only surviving 71 minutes.

In addition, the center has other 10 pregnant cows, who are part of the scientific experiment, will give birth to cloned calves in the coming days.

First Dead

Chinese scientists confirmed Saturday the death of China's first cloned calf, which was born at 9:25 pm Friday in Caoxian County, east China's Shandong Province.

The female calf died more than one hour after her birth at the Animal Embryo Project Center in Caoxian County, according to Saturday's China Youth Daily.

Yu Zhongbo, general manager of the Shandong Zhongda Animal Embryo Project Center, which carried out the embryo transplantation, said that the cause of the cloned calf's death is not clear right now.

Yu said the expected date of the calf's birth was originally on January 27, but the surrogate mother cow showed signs to give birth Friday night. The mother cow gave birth to the cloned calf through a Cesarean section.

Yu said that the mother cow has been ill and received transfusion over the past two months and that may have affected the life of the calf.

Based on the current level of cloning technology in the world, nobody can assure a 100 percent success in cloning animals, Yu said.

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