Worst Chickens for Sabong: What Breeds Should Stay Away from Cockpits?
Not all chickens are suitable as gamefowls and professional breeders are selective with what breeds they start with to develop their own bloodline. Some breeds were successfully developed or revived thanks to the efforts of their breeders. The popular Sweater was developed by Nesmith from a stock of bad roosters and turned into a deadly breed in Mexico and the Philippines.
Just as some chicken breeds are better than others, there are certainly some breeds that should never set foot in cockpits if the breeder aims to win. Some of these breeds are better kept as broilers, pets, or simple domesticated farm animals.
Some of these chicken breeds are the following:
Worst Chickens for Sabong: Brahma
The Brahma chicken is often regarded as the king of all chicken breeds. The reason here is because they possess the following characteristics:
Brahmas are considered kings, but this doesn’t mean that they’re the kings of the cockpits. First of all, they’re incredibly friendly chickens not fit for the aggressive atmosphere of the cockpits. Second, this breed is better suited to produce food for people, even though they aren’t mainly used by the food industry as broilers. Third, these chickens are too friendly and should instead be used as pets if you’re interested in raising them for your kids.
Worst Chickens for Sabong: Cornish
Cornish game or Indian game chickens are a breed known for their compact size, rapid growth rate, and meatiness. The Cornish breed was originally developed to combine the speed of the English Game and the power of the Asil. The cross between these two breeds failed to retain the characteristics of the parent breeds that made them into gamecocks but instead resulted in the creation of a new breed.
The resulting Cornish game wasn’t hardy, prolific, or fast-growing but thrived in a few specific niches, which are the following:
While the Cornish Game failed as a gamefowl, it succeeded as meat birds that revolutionized the meat industry in the US.
Worst Chickens for Sabong: Malay
The Malay breed was initially bred for cockfighting but are now used as exotic pets or show birds. Malays have existed for about 3.5 thousand years and are robust and vigorous but are now rare and a critically endangered breed. As such, they are no longer fit to fight in cockpits and they have seen better use for crossbreeding.
Malays possess genetics distinct from other chicken breeds, allowing breeders to pass down the breed’s strength, health, and vigor to other breeds. This also allowed certain Asian fowl lines ranging from Games to Longtails to be revitalized. Several active gamefowl breeds and bloodlines today may have had been bred with Malays to give them better strength, health, and vigor and even some superficial traits including feather color.
While purebred Malays remain as one of the best cockfighting breeds out there due to their aggressive nature and tendency to fight, they are still not fit to participate in them. They’re better used to revitalize gamefowl breeds and revive the Malay breed to take them out of the endangered list.
One breed that was developed from crossing Malays is the Indio Gigante which was mainly developed using Shamos and Malays.
Conclusion
Not all chicken breeds are fit for the cockpits and even those that were well-known or originally bred for cockfighting aren’t necessarily good for fighting today. There are more breeds aside from the Brahma, Cornish, and the Malay that are better used for other purposes, either for the food industry or to raise new breeds.
It’s best for breeders to stick to well-known gamefowl breeds or develop their own. Bettors who spot any of the breeds stated in this article when playing online sabong should do well to avoid them and instead bet on their opponent, except for the Malay since there’s a big chance that they can defeat their competition.
