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Thailand Livestock and Poultry
Animal husbandry accounted for about 13 percent of the gross
value of agricultural production in the early 1980s. Water
buffalo and cattle remained the chief draft animals for
cultivation, although tractors were playing an increasing role in
some areas, as in the maize-growing regions of the central plain.
Buffalo, predominantly of the swamp type well suited to paddy
culture, were estimated at between 5.5 and 7.2 million. Able to
flourish on coarse fodder and roughage indigestible by other
livestock, buffalo were found in all farming areas; even very
small paddy farmers usually had at least one animal. After
maturing, buffalo were used as draft animals for five or six
years, or until too old to work, when they were slaughtered and
sold for meat. Cattle, numbering between 4.9 and 5.5 million,
were used mainly for upland plowing and hauling carts. About 70
percent of all farms had cattle. Although 30 percent of farms had
three or more head, there were few herds of more than 10 animals.
Cattle also were slaughtered for meat once their usefulness had
ended.
Pigs were an important source of meat, and there were about 5
million in the early 1980s. Most farmers raised one or two, and
an estimated 150,000 families were engaged in commercial pig
raising. Weather conditions were generally unsuitable for using
horses except in the North, where the common variety was the
so-called Yunnan pony mainly valued as a pack animal. Tame
elephants remained important to the forest industry in the 1980s,
especially in harvesting teak, where the use of mechanical
equipment was economically prohibitive because of the wide
dispersal of individual trees.
Livestock reproduction rates were low because most animals
were bred only when it did not interfere with work. In addition,
debilitating diseases, including foot-and-mouth disease, were
endemic to all regions except the South. These diseases retarded
expansion of the national herd of livestock, which was reported
to be growing at only about 2.5 percent annually in the early
1980s. Shortages of meat in Bangkok in the early 1970s led to
student demonstrations and the establishment of export quotas in
early 1974 (in early 1979 the quotas were 35,000 head of cattle
and 15,000 of buffalo annually). Several commercial dairy herds
and smallholder dairy cooperatives furnished some milk for sale.
Demand for fresh milk and dairy products had grown, especially in
Bangkok.
Almost all smallholders raised some chickens and ducks for
eggs and meat. The commercial production of chickens grew
dramatically in the 1970s, and nearly 65,000 tons of frozen
chickens were exported in 1986, of which 95 percent went to
Japan. A considerable number of commercial operations had flocks
of over 20,000. Select breeding stock was used, and modern
operational practices were followed. Commercial duck farms were
almost entirely Chinese operated.
Data as of September 1987
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