China's first calf cloned from a skin cell has been doing well since its birth at the Laiyang Agricultural College in Shandong Province Saturday evening.

The black beef calf, a female named Kangkang, drank from the feeding bottle held by its keeper after its birth, sources said.

The calf was cloned from an epidermic cell taken from a beef cow fetus. It was carried by a white-faced black surrogate mother, which gave the birth to the calf in a successful 15-minute delivery at around 18 on November 3.

In late August, a cloned calf, delivered at the University of California at Davis, the United States, died three days after its birth.

China's first cloned calf was born in mid October in Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong Province, but died 80 minutes after birth.

( November 6, 2001)