Cloning is not currently carried out in the UK, other than in research, so the impact on commercial farm species is not a current issue.
Following a review of the current evidence FAWC concluded that:
- the operations involved with ovum pickup should be carefully monitored
- late gestational losses, dystocia and large offspring are likely to compromise the welfare of surrogate dams
- due to low efficiency of cloning a high number of surrogate dams suffer pregnancy failure
- the welfare of a significant proportion of clones themselves is adversely affected
You can read more about the work of the Farm Animal Welfare Committee.