Top 11 Insights You Need to Know About Tre Chickens

Tre chicken (more precisely known as 'mon-che' in Khmer) is a native breed that was once quite common in the Southern region of Vietnam, especially in the Mekong Delta. It is a breed of relatively small size and was traditionally raised for ornamental purposes.

However, this chicken breed seems to have not been rigorously studied by scientists, and there is no official literature about it. Its name, 'Gà Che,' comes from the Khmer language. Later, as this breed became popular across Vietnam, the Vietnamese people assumed that the name 'Che' was mispronounced by the people of the Mekong Delta, so they corrected it to 'Gà Tre,' which means Tre Chicken. The name 'Tre chicken' began to appear and spread from then on.

Male Tre chickens are highly combative and have a strong territorial instinct towards competing rivals. However, they are willing to overlook other males in the flock if these individuals submit to them, meaning they do not crow in front of them and, of course, do not vie for hens with them.

Adult male Tre chickens are excellent fighters and tough, especially those aged two years and older (if younger than this, they tend to flee while fighting and then return to resume fighting, repeating this behavior several times before finally fleeing altogether), at which point they can defeat opponents much heavier, up to three or four times their weight, including meat breeds and even fighting cocks (gamecocks) are not adversaries. A match between two mature Tre chickens can last for several hours. While some may argue that they fight to the death is somewhat exaggerated, it is true that one of the two may die later due to severe injuries or an inability to recover their strength.

The plumage of Tre chickens nowadays displays a wide variety of colors, likely resulting from crossbreeding with other chicken breeds. Based on unofficial records and accounts from individuals who lived in the southwestern region of Vietnam in the 1940s and 1950s, Tre chickens typically exhibit three primary plumage colors.

Key features of Tre chickens include:

• Smooth, glossy feathers that are quite long and close-fitting, as opposed to overly fluffy feathers seen in some imported ornamental chicken breeds.
• Coloration of beak and legs: Ideally, purebred Tre chickens have bright yellow coloring. The beak is small and triangular in shape.
• Comb: The most common type is the leaf comb, of moderate size and always standing erect like that of jungle fowl.
• Tail: The tail is angled at 30 to 40 degrees from the ground, with multiple layers of overlapping feathers. The tail feathers of male Tre chickens are typically long and abundant, forming a circular arch, with the longest feathers reaching the ground, sometimes trailing two or three meters. However, unlike shrimp tails, the tails of southwestern Tre chickens do not fan out widely to the sides.
• Legs: The legs of southwestern Tre chickens are relatively tall compared to modern ornamental breeds, with slender, small shanks that are as long as the thighs but very agile in digging and foraging. Roosters have well-developed spurs, often long and sharply curved.
• Overall physique: Tre chickens have a tall, sleek physique, aesthetically pleasing, with clear, melodious crowing, graceful movement, and robust health.
  

The diet for Tre chickens is not significantly different from other chicken breeds but requires careful preparation and feeding. Tre chickens are often more sensitive to food, so the nutritional regimen needs to be more sophisticated. For meat and ornamental Tre chickens, as well as fighting chickens, there are different care routines to suit their characteristics.

To ensure that Tre chickens live healthily with beautiful plumage, they need a scientifically balanced and nutritious diet. The main types of food for Tre chickens include:

• Rice: Rice is the main component of the Tre chicken diet as well as other chicken breeds. It contains essential elements that contribute to firm chicken meat and healthy muscles, enhancing the chicken's immune system and resistance to impacts during fights. For laying hens, it is essential for producing sturdy eggshells.
• Green vegetables: Green vegetables provide natural fiber and vitamin K, helping to cool down the chicken's body and quickly detoxify on hot summer days. Green vegetables can be fed directly to chickens or chopped and mixed with food to encourage greater consumption.
• Bait: Bait provides Tre chickens with protein and amino acids to restore their health. Therefore, when raising any type of chicken, this component cannot be omitted.
• Commercial feed
• Water

Based on the coloration resulting from crossbreeding with other chicken breeds, Tre chickens consist of 3 breeds with 3 main plumage colors as follows:

• Plantain Tre Chicken: the rooster has white-red-black feathers with white feathers on the neck and mane with a few faint black stripes in the middle; black feathers on the belly, chest, and tail; the hen has black-white feathers
• Cashew Tre Chicken: the rooster has feathers on the back and tail similar to Plantain Tre Chicken but the mane feathers are purplish-red or fiery red; the hen has feathers in a blend of brown and black
• Other Tre chicken breeds exhibit a variety of eye-catching colors such as purple-red, white-red, cream-yellow, black, gray, white, yellow, etc.

In addition, Vietnam also possesses distinctive Tre chicken breeds including Tan Chau Tre, American Tre, and Serama Tre, which have considerable economic value and are raised for ornamental purposes or for participation in competitions nationwide.

Chickens can reach maturity after six months of raising, but true maturity is achieved after eight months for hens and one year for roosters. The egg-laying capability of hens varies depending on the individual. In natural breeding, hens lay about three to four clutches per year. If we collect eggs without letting the hen incubate them, each clutch will be separated by twenty to thirty days.

The number of eggs per clutch is usually over ten, and some individuals can continuously lay twenty eggs per clutch. However, this chicken breed is not widely raised, so some cases experience degeneration due to a reduced number of eggs per clutch, sometimes only five to six, and the hens may not lay eggs continuously.

Previously, tre chickens were raised freely in household gardens and almost couldn't adapt to confined breeding conditions, specifically, they had difficulty in reproducing when kept in narrow cages. In the late 1980s, the author of this article attempted to confine a pair of adult tre chickens in a cage measuring 80x80x80mm. The hen still laid eggs, but there was no rooster because the rooster didn't mate with the hen. Below are ways to properly care for tre chickens:

• Tre chickens are relatively easy to raise, requiring little space for pens or coops, mainly raised freely in household gardens, corners of yards, or under eaves.
• They have a relatively high immune system, so they are rarely affected by diseases. However, breeders should note some common diseases in tre chickens, especially in the first few months after hatching, such as fowl pox, avian flu, infectious coryza, marek's disease, chronic respiratory disease, etc.
• Due to the small body size of tre chickens, when confined, they should not be housed with larger chicken breeds.
• Pens, feeders, and waterers must be thoroughly disinfected, dry, and clean, ensuring coolness in summer, warmth in winter, and protection from drafts. Bedding such as straw, sawdust, should be used and the coop should be sprayed with disinfectant before breeding.

This can be considered as the smallest chicken breed in Vietnam if we don't count imported ornamental chicken breeds. Hen weighs from 400 grams to 600 grams, while rooster weighs from 500 grams to 800 grams, but the ideal weight is from 600 grams downwards for roosters, with some exceptional individuals weighing only 400 grams.

The weight of Tre chickens:

• Newly hatched chicks weigh between 16.5 and 21.2 grams.
• At 8 weeks old:
  • Roosters weigh 371.2 to 420.3 grams each.
  • Hens weigh 337.30 to 368.7 grams.
• At 20 weeks old:
  • Roosters weigh 857.22 to 910.8 grams each.
  • Hens weigh 565.3 to 586.6 grams each.

The price of ornamental or fighting Tre chickens varies depending on their overall body shape and color of the feathers. It is known that Tân Châu chickens are sold for about 1 million to tens of millions of Vietnamese dong per chicken; while Serama chickens are priced from a few million to tens of millions of dong per chicken.

How much are meat Tre chickens?

• Meat Tre chickens are priced between 150,000 and 200,000 VND per kilogram.
• Tre chicken chicks aged 1 week are priced at 25,000 to 35,000 VND per chick.
• Tre chicken eggs are priced from 2,500 to 3,000 VND per egg.

Here are some other interesting facts about Tre chickens:

• The appearance of Tân Châu chickens in Tân Châu town, An Giang province, with a tail nearly 1 meter long, is priced at thousands of dollars.
• Tre chickens possess a unique gene pool of Vietnam, but due to being not widely raised and many breeders crossbreeding with other chicken breeds to improve their physique and health, the risk of breed deterioration and extinction is entirely possible in the future.

In the past twenty years, Southern Vietnamese Tre Chicken has experienced a significant decline in numbers due to the following reasons:

• It does not provide economic benefits, so it is not being raised.
• It has been crossbred with other meat chicken breeds to increase weight and then sold to urban areas as a specialty dish because Tre Chicken meat is known for its delicious taste.
• It has been crossbred with fighting chickens (gamecocks), American chickens, Asil, Peru, and Malaysian chickens to improve stature, physical fitness, and the ability to use steel spurs for the cockfighting community.
• The trend of other ornamental chicken breeds such as Tân Châu Tre Chicken, which is actually a hybrid product from Southern Vietnamese Tre Chicken with other chicken breeds from breeders in An Giang, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, etc., has encouraged those with fewer ornamental chickens to abandon original Tre Chicken breeds or crossbreed them with other chicken breeds, further accelerating the risk of extinction for Southern Vietnamese Tre Chicken.