This little piggy is a female

NANNING: Chinese scientists have claimed a commercial breakthrough after breeding 10 piglets whose sex was successfully selected before conception, heralding potential higher profits for farmers.

A worker hold four female piglets born in one brood at an experimental  farm of the Animal Science Institute in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang  autonomous region, June 25, 2009. They were the first pigs in China  bred from sperm sorted into male and female chromosomes. [Asianewsphoto]

The healthy piglets were born last week on an experimental farm belonging to the Animal Science Institute in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, the institute's top zoologist Lu Kehuan said yesterday.

"They were the first pigs in China bred from sperm sorted into male and female chromosomes," he said.

The piglets were born in two broods, an all-male brood of six last Thursday and an all-female brood of four last Saturday.

Lu and his team separated sperm with the female X chromosome from sperm with the male Y chromosome, and used artificial insemination to inject the separated sperm into four sows.

"Two of them gave birth after 115 days and the other two are due to give birth soon."