Chinanews, Harbin, Jan. 4 – On December 23, 2006, a pregnant sow gave birth to nine cloning piglets at a time, breaking the world record for the number of cloning pigs born at a time. All the nine piglets were Min Pig and six of them began to suck for milk 30 minutes after they were born.

 

The cloning science project was carried out by a team of researchers from the Northeast Agricultural University led by Dr. Liu Zhonghua.

 

In international science circle, a pregnant female pig can usually give birth to at most 4 cloning small pigs. This is the first time in Harbin that a pregnant female pig gave birth to nine cloning piglets at a time and all the piglets were born through natural process. The success of the project shows that scientists working in the Embryo Experiment Lab at the Northeast Agricultural University have made a great breakthrough in the cloning pig embryo science project and their embryo technology in the production of cloning pigs equals the world advanced level.