Thai Game
The Siamese Fighter

date: 2026-06-01

The Thai Game — known in Thailand as ไก่ชน (kai chon, “fighting chicken”) — is the bird of the Siamese pit, the closest living relative of the prototype that the Japanese bred into the modern Shamo.

Cockfighting in Thailand is ancient. Stone reliefs from the Khmer temple of Phimai (11th century) depict gamecocks in combat, and the practice is mentioned in the Traiphum — the cosmological texts of the early Ayutthaya period. By the time of King Narai the Great (1656–1688), cockfighting had become a courtly art with a literature of its own, including treatises on breeding, conditioning, and matching.

A Bird of Many Colours

The Thai Game is not a single breed in the European sense but a family of regional landraces — perhaps a dozen distinct strains, each developed in a particular province for a particular style of combat. The most famous include:

• ประดู่หางดำ (Pradu Hang Dam, “black-tailed Pradu*) — the iconic black-breasted-red of central Thailand, especially Nakhon Pathom and Suphan Buri
• เขียวหมอก (Khiao Mok) — the “misty green,” a wheat-coloured strain popular in the upper central region
• เหลืองหางขาว (Lueang Hang Khao) — the white-tailed yellow
• ทองแดงหางดำ (Thong Daeng Hang Dam) — the copper-black-tailed
• ประดู่แข้งดำ (Pradu Khaeng Dam) — the black-shanked Pradu, a famous fighting strain from the central region

Each is bred with astonishing fidelity. The best Thai gamefowl breeders are fancier and farmer in equal measure, maintaining detailed pedigree books passed down through generations.

Distinctive Physical Traits

The Thai Game is slim, elegant, and balanced — shorter in the leg than the Shamo, more athletic in carriage than the Malay. The comb is small and of pea type (three ridges); wattles are reduced. Plumage is close and gleaming, traditionally in black-breasted red but in many of the regional varieties running to wheat, copper, grey, and pure white.

Cultural Role

Cockfighting remains legal in Thailand under the Animal Welfare Act of 2014 (which licensed the practice and continues to regulate it through registered pits). It is one of the few countries in Asia where the tradition retains formal legal recognition. Major matches can draw several hundred million baht in wagers, and the breed’s breeding and conditioning is a sophisticated art with professional trainers (mo kai chon) serving the most serious breeders.

The Thai Game has been exported throughout Southeast Asia and is the ancestor of several Filipino Sabong lines.

Conservation

The Thai Game is considered secure in its home range, where cockfighting is an established and legal tradition. Outside Thailand, populations are smaller but stable in neighbouring countries.