Rare breed of pig cloned for Lincolnville farm Wisconsin firm to return piglets to Maine

LINCOLNVILLE – Princess the sow has two new piglets she’s never met.

Napping in the spring sunshine Wednesday morning, her floppy ears covering her eyes, Princess was oblivious to the fact that she became a mother – sort of – on April 11.

The 600-pound pig is a Gloucestershire Old Spot, a rare breed that was established in England in the 1800s. Princess calls Kelmscott Farm in Lincolnville her home.

With DNA taken from a tissue sample from one of her floppy ears, another sow played surrogate mother for Princess, as a biotechnology firm successfully cloned two piglets from Princess, whose breed has dwindled to just 90 in the United States and less than 500 worldwide.

Princess’ progeny are happy and healthy in Wisconsin, Kelmscott’s spokesman, Craig Olson, said Wednesday. They are at Infigen Inc., the firm that completed the cloning for Kelmscott. When the piglets are weaned from their surrogate mother in late May or early June, they’ll come to Lincolnville to meet their genetically identical mother, Princess.

Infigen donated the cost of its work to the farm, he said.

Kelmscott, off Route 52, is operated by Kelmscott Rare Breeds Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1995 to conserve rare and endangered breeds of farm livestock.

Olson believes the cloning of Princess is just the third successful procedure undertaken on a rare livestock breed. A sheep was cloned in Italy, he said, and an ox was cloned but the offspring died just 48 hours after birth.

There are no U.S. laws forbidding the cloning of animals, though the federal Food and Drug Administration does not permit the meat of cloned animals to be sold for consumption, Olson said.

Cloning is a recently developed procedure that, unlike artificial insemination or the transfer of an embryo from one womb to another, produces a genetic carbon copy of the first animal. DNA – the code that dictates that which is common to other members of a species, as well as some unique characteristics – is isolated and then inserted into the cytoplasm of egg cells whose DNA had been removed.

Olson said the piglets cloned from Princess won’t necessarily look identical to the Lincolnville sow because features such as spots on the animal’s coat are determined by environmental factors.

A new chapter in science was written in 1997 when a sheep named Dolly was successfully cloned in Scotland. The success of that procedure raised ethical and health questions that continue to reverberate.

Unlike early experiments in cloning which sought to determine the feasibility of the procedure on more advanced species, Kelmscott is using the technology to conserve a species that is in danger of becoming extinct.

With farms increasingly relying on one genetic strain of livestock, Olson said, meat, egg and milk production could be threatened if a disease to which that species is susceptible begins to spread. Saving such species as the Gloucestershire Old Spot ensures that agriculture will have other breeds to turn to in the event of disease devastating livestock.

Olson said the vast majority of beef cattle are descended from just four genetic strains. And 90 percent of the milk produced in the United States comes from Holsteins, he said. Should these breeds succumb to a disease epidemic, the biodiversity becomes critically important, he said.

Princess, born in 1996, was successfully bred just once, despite repeated attempts, and produced two piglets. The animals have a life expectancy of eight to 10 years, so time was running out for the sow.

Since the outbreak of hoof and mouth disease in Europe, importing pigs has been banned, cutting off Kelmscott’s source of the Gloucestershire Old Spots.

Olson said that once the piglets – which are both female – come of age, Kelmscott will attempt to breed them. If those attempts are unsuccessful, it might suggest a genetic problem with the particular strain of Gloucestershire Old Spot from which Princess hails, he said.

Princess represents the last of her particular line in North America, Olson said.

Last summer, President Bush wrestled with the issue of human cloning, finally announcing that he opposed inquiries into that endeavor. This year, Congress has considered several bills that would ban human cloning.

Joyce Peterson, spokeswoman for The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, said the lab does not clone the mice it provides to research centers because it breeds them genetically pure.

Peterson noted that a study published in the journal Science last summer, completed by the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Massachusetts, showed that cloned mice appeared to show some genetic abnormalities.

And Peterson referenced a study published in February in Japan that revealed that cloned mice have shorter life spans.

Although Kelmscott’s mission is to conserve rare breeds, the farm butchers its pigs and lambs for meat, Olson said. The meat is sold at the Lincolnville location. The Gloucestershire Old Spots produce a fine marbled meat, high in fat content, that is tasty, he added.

When her days are numbered, Princess will face the butcher’s knife, but her offspring will help ensure the survival of the breed, which is also valued for lard and its bristle hair, which is used in making paint brushes.