Selection and cloning methods

A method of cloning an animal, comprising:

• assembling a group of individual animals;
• preserving a sample from at least one individual animal, where the sample contains at least one cell;
• obtaining a measurement of at least one post-mortem characteristic of the individual animals;
• selecting an animal to be cloned, based on the measurement of the at least one post-mortem characteristic;
• and
• cloning the selected animal from the preserved cell.

A method of selecting and cloning an animal, comprising:

• identifying a group of bovine animals;
• preserving a sample from each bovine animal, where the sample contains a fibroblast cell;
• obtaining a measurement of at least one ante-mortem characteristic of the bovine animals;
• slaughtering the group of bovine animals;
• obtaining a measurement of at least one post-mortem characteristic of the bovine animals
• selecting at least one bovine animal to be cloned, based on at least one ante-mortem and at least one post-mortem measured characteristic;
• and
• cloning the selected bovine animal from the preserved fibroblast cell, where cloning the fibroblast cell comprises:
• transferring nuclear material of the preserved fibroblast cell to a first enucleated oocyte to generate a first couplet;
• maturing the first couplet in vitro and/or in vivo for a sufficient length of time and under appropriate conditions to produce a fetus of at least 30 days gestational age;
• aborting the fetus;
• transferring nuclear material of a fibroblast cell of the fetus to a second enucleated oocyte to generate a second couplet;
• and
• generating a cloned animal from the second couplet.