The fee for making one clone is about $17,000. Additional (simultaneous) copies can be made at a “volume discount,” but the extra clones aren’t all that much cheaper than the initial one.
Do they look exactly like the original animal?
Clones don't necessarily look exactly like the founder animal. The Panhandle Slim clones, for example, have the same body formation or physique as Panhandle Slim, and by the photo you can see that they have the same face. The spotting patterns are different, however, due to the migration of the melanoblast cells that cause coat color. (Identical human twins can also have deviations in eye or even hair color.) Some say that if you measured the total area of black pigmentation on each Panhandle Slim clone, they would all have the same amount as each other and as Panhandle Slim. Variations in nutrition and factors such as illness or injury can make a difference in the size of the animal.
Do they act like the founder animal?
The Panhandle Slim clones are said to be very similar in temperament to Panhandle Slim, who had a reputation for being crazy and mean right up until the end. Because the owner of the clones knew the personality of the original bull, he tried to work with them and accustom them to people at a young age. He says that they came out mean anyway.
Some say that the recipient cow can also affect the temperament of the clone because it’s the cow's blood nurturing the calf in utero. In addition, if a cloned bucking bull calf grows up at the side of a placid surrogate mother this could also have an effect on his personality. Since the recipient cow is usually a black Angus cross, it is going to be less hot tempered than a bucking stock cow.
Do the clones buck like the originals?
Four of the original six Slim clones are on the PBR Built Ford Tough Tour and doing well. Another of the six died, and the last was not an adequate bucker. Of eight Dr. Proctor clones, two are being bucked currently and are reportedly doing well. Even with a superstar's clones success is far from a sure thing.
What "relation" are they to the founder animal?
As you might expect, a lot of people struggle with this. Cloning labs will tell you that clones are identical twins to the original animal, just "born at a later time and place." Which is a little bit of linguistic mumbo jumbo, since identical twins are called monozygotic twins because one egg cell divides completely in two to make two identical embryos, and in the case of clones that's not what's happening.
The clone labs will also tell you that the clones have the same sire and dam as the original, though there are those who would argue that they have no sire or dam. No sperm, no egg = no daddy, no momma. On the other hand, they aren't Panhandle Slim, himself, either. They're something made from his DNA, in a lab, via other animals' egg cells, born of different carriers, looking slightly different, raised at the side of different surrogates, under different circumstances. That's the slippery thing about clones. They're just animals, but then again, they're really different.
Can they be bred?
Yes, but since clones cannot be registered with the ABBI, and the bucking bull industry is largely anti-clone and clone-offspring, clones' usefulness as breeders did not pan out.
What bulls have been cloned?
Panhandle Slim, Dr. Proctor, Little Yellow Jacket, and Houdini are the bulls that are commonly known to have been cloned. I am told there are many others, but I don't have definite first hand knowledge of them. There is also at least one cow - CP1 Kung Fu - with a set of clones on the ground. CP1 Kung Fu was the dam to Panhandle Slim, and when her five clones run around a paddock, they run like a flock of birds flies: almost as if they had the same mind.
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If you'd like to read more about clones, check out How to Make a Clone and The Clone Controversy.
