The First Pair of Panda Twins Born Overseas by Artificial Insemination
Sep. 7th, 2007, panda Bing Xing and Hua Zuiba from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding left for Madrid, Spain to settle down there for 10 years as friendship ambassadors. Three years later, the same date that they left, Hua Zuiba successfully gave birth. It is also the first twins born overseas by artificial insemination since the long-term international cooperation on giant panda breeding project between China and foreign nations began.
Male panda Bing Xing (pedigree No. 519) was born on Sep. 1st, 2000, his 10th birthday has just past. Hua Zuiba (pedigree No. 576) was born Sep. 16th, 2003, she is 7 years old.
After 135 days pregnancy and 25 days of reduced appetite, Hua Zuiba started to show antenatal behaviour starting on Sep. 7th. She walked up and down and rolled on the ground in her house. At 17:80, her water broke. Experts from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding contacted with a rearing expert who went to Madrid zoo one month ago through video on QQ to observe and provide facts for the caring of Hua Zuiba, when they got this information. This is the first time for Hua Zuiba to give birth. According to experience, unexpected accidents may be happened to new mothers. So base experts worked with the Madrid zoo staff and guided them to do preparation works for delivery. At 19:37, after strong abdominal contraction, ringing sounds occured. Even Hua Zuiba was only profile toward to camera, but the base experts confirmed that Hua Zuiba held her baby before the baby laid on the ground. Everyone was relieved. Soon, Hua Zuiba gave us a pleasant surprise. At 21:13, the second cub was born unexpectedly. Although Hua Zuiba tried to hold both of them, she failed. So preparation experts from the panda base successfully took one of the babies out.
Everyone s heart is finally at rest. Two experts from the panda base are taking care of Hua Zuiba and her babies to make sure they are healthy.
Hua Zuiba created the new record on international cooperation for giant pandas. It is also the first pair of twins born overseas by artificial insemination. Some twins have been born in some other countries caused by natural mating. There is no record of twins born overseas surviving besides in Japan. Until the end of Aug., 2010, only Chengdu panda base and Adventure World Park had successfully bred panda twins that survived.
Now there are 10 pandas which belong to the panda base that have been born, including 2 litters with 4 cubs born in Japan and Spain. It sounds like Three Kingdoms played a brilliant show on panda breeding.
