Breeding dogs in thailand

[jackdd]

The family of my girlfriend is looking for a new way to earn money because they can't run their old business anymore because of their health condition.

They were thinking of breeding something like crabs or prawns. But i've heard from people who make quite good money by breeding dogs (but always just friend of friend, so i can't ask them directly), they have dogs at home already (but these are just pets)

Does anybody have any experience with breeding dogs in Thailand and could give some insights? I couldn't find much on Google.

 

My idea to be able to judge if it's profitable or not was to buy them 2 dogs and make them write down any costs that occur regarding the dogs (and make their house "dog safe"), the investment required for this seems to be quite low and my GF would even share the costs with me. I don't mind if i lose this money. Then after for example a year i would know if it should be profitable. If it seems profitable i would get "breeding grade" dogs and make a bigger business out of it.

The only problem that occurred to me was that it seems to be quite difficult to get adult dogs as pure breeds, everybody is just selling puppies, and i don't want to wait 2 years until they can have babies. What do Thai people do with the puppies that they buy but later don't want anymore?

[RichCor]

Technically, you only need a pure bred 'bitch', and arrange to have her 'serviced' once a year by another purebred.

 

We have a young Thai friend in Bangkok who breeds and sells 'registered' pups. Usually raising 6-8 pups at a time he uses social media to pre-sell and develop a waiting list, building anticipation, posting the adorable puppy pics along the way. He chooses small breed / miniatures and sells them at 10,000 THB each.

 

For him it works because of his social media presence. But he has an audience with disposable income who like looking cool with a dog in their handbag.

 

Otherwise you wind up giving most away to avoid the ongoing cost of keeping them.

[Pib]

To start out go with a small dog breed vs large dog....and a dog preferred by human females such as a Pomeranian.   Small dogs and those preferred by females are much, much popular in Thailand that larger dogs.  Should also be much easier to sell.   

 

One of the best places to see what breeds of dogs most people have and prefer (and willing to spend big money on) is to go to a large animal clinic and watch what kind of dogs people bring it.   You'll see all kinds of breeds but many more small breeds than large breeds...and it's not because small breeds get sicker more often but because people predominately have small breed dogs.

 

But I'll be the first to admit breeding some large breed dogs like golden retrievers, border collies, huskies, etc., will sell like hotcakes also.

 

 

[jackdd]

18 minutes ago, RichCor said:

Technically, you only need a pure bred 'bitch', and arrange to have her 'serviced' once a year by another purebred.

 

We have a young Thai friend in Bangkok who breeds and sells 'registered' pups. Usually raising 6-8 pups at a time he uses social media to pre-sell and develop a waiting list, building anticipation, posting the adorable puppy pics along the way. He chooses small breed / miniatures and sells them at 10,000 THB each.

 

For him it works because of his social media presence. But he has an audience with disposable income who like looking cool with a dog in their handbag.

 

Otherwise you wind up giving most away to avoid the ongoing cost of keeping them.

 Yes, just a female would be possible, but at least when you really want to make a business out of it i think it's better to have an own male and so i think it makes sense to have one from the beginning to get a better estimation of the costs.

 

Actually while researching about this topic i read somewhere that Bangkok made it illegal to breed dogs in Bangkok, but don't know the source now anymore.

 

The "usual" rate seems to be 5000-10000thb for the puppies, like i found for example here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pompom.th/

But to me it seems a bit strange that they never mention anything about the bloodline. In Germany if you buy pure breed dogs from a breeder you always get certifications about this, so i'm wondering if these are all without certification.

Then i also found this site https://www.facebook.com/pommyfarm1/

There some puppies are already sold for something like 20000thb and they write something about the parents of the dog, so they are probably "certified".

I also saw that there are dog shows in Thailand where a dog then can become a "champion" which results in higher selling prices for their puppies. But i found only very few details about this, especially how you get certificates for the dogs to prove their bloodline.

[topt]

 

26 minutes ago, jackdd said:

There some puppies are already sold for something like 20000thb and they write something about the parents of the dog, so they are probably "certified".

I had a GSD puppy which was 25k about 5 years ago from a farm/breeder. This dog has registration papers with one of the 2 Thai GSD associations and some markings were stamped on its ear. Its parents or lineage I think were originally from Europe.

You may want to have a search through some of the old posts in the Plants/Pets etc forum on people searching for specific breeds for some more background.

[flyingdoc]

There have been International dog shows held in BKK for the last 2 years, where by far the most abundant breed was the Pomeranian.  A large breed , like a St. Bernard, especially with a brandy keg round her neck, attracted some 2,000+

photos, and was stroked by everyone!  If you are interested in breeding seriously, you MUST get the correct papers, but in my experience, you have to pay extra for these!

[jackdd]

23 minutes ago, flyingdoc said:

There have been International dog shows held in BKK for the last 2 years, where by far the most abundant breed was the Pomeranian.  A large breed , like a St. Bernard, especially with a brandy keg round her neck, attracted some 2,000+

photos, and was stroked by everyone!  If you are interested in breeding seriously, you MUST get the correct papers, but in my experience, you have to pay extra for these!

I personally also prefer bigger dogs, but they require much more work. So i think starting with small dogs is better. I can just put a fence in their garden, and the dogs can run around there in the morning and evening, which should be sufficient for these small dogs, so nobody has to walk them every day for 20km which would be required for bigger dogs, especially for dogs of the "working races".

 

About the papers, as mentioned before, i just couldn't find anything on Google in english regarding Thailand, probably i have to tell my GF to look for this in Thai. Obviously they don't come for free, but it would be good to know which costs this implies.

Does anybody have any idea how to get adult dogs? If i'm seriously going to do this probably i have to contact the breeders and just ask them for this, which will for sure come at a price and not be cheap. But as i mentioned before, i would do a testing phase to see if it's economically viable (also if the family of my GF is able to handle this) without making a high investment, so i would prefer to try it with "normal" dogs, but don't know yet how to get these dogs.

 

[Suradit69]

Great idea because Thailand needs more dogs.

[impulse]

Queen Sirikit National Convention Center has a pet show once or twice a year where you can get all kinds of info.

 

I recall it's in the spring or summer, so you may have to wait for next year, but you can check out the calendar here.

 

http://www.qsncc.com/en/visitor.html

 

http://www.qsncc.com/en/visitor/item/2261-pet-expo-thailand-2018.html

 

 

Edited October 24, 2017 by impulse

[Bob12345]

So you plan to set up a puppy mill?

 

Normally a breeder is a person who loves dogs and has in depth knowledge of them. They specialize in a certain breed, train their dogs, and go to competitions. They read up on breeding standards, have a world wide network to get good bloodlines, and promote the breed by sticking to the origin of the breed. They match personalities of dogs and stop breeding with a dog that has the wrong features.

 

What you plan on doing is get 2 dogs to f... and sell the puppies for as much as possible. Thats what so many Thais are already doing and you will be competing with thousands of others who lack any knowledge of the trade they are in and don't care about the dogs themselves.

[PerkinsCuthbert]

13 minutes ago, Bob12345 said:

So you plan to set up a puppy mill?

 

Normally a breeder is a person who loves dogs and has in depth knowledge of them. They specialize in a certain breed, train their dogs, and go to competitions. They read up on breeding standards, have a world wide network to get good bloodlines, and promote the breed by sticking to the origin of the breed. They match personalities of dogs and stop breeding with a dog that has the wrong features.

 

What you plan on doing is get 2 dogs to f... and sell the puppies for as much as possible. Thats what so many Thais are already doing and you will be competing with thousands of others who lack any knowledge of the trade they are in and don't care about the dogs themselves.

I agree. Better to become an English teacher.

[jackdd]

Actually i explained this before already.

 

What you plan on doing is get 2 dogs to f... and sell the puppies for as much as possible.

This would be step 1, to get an estimation of the return and investment, the required work and to see if the family can handle this.

 

21 minutes ago, Bob12345 said:

Normally a breeder is a person who loves dogs and has in depth knowledge of them. They specialize in a certain breed, train their dogs, and go to competitions. They read up on breeding standards, have a world wide network to get good bloodlines, and promote the breed by sticking to the origin of the breed. They match personalities of dogs and stop breeding with a dog that has the wrong features.

This would then be step 2, if step 1 shows that this could be a viable business. But of course with the focus on being a profitable business, not a hobby.

[Proboscis]

To be painfully honest with you, getting into dog breeding as a business with no prior experience is probably not the path to success. The only way money can be made is in the pedigree breeding but that requires strict registration and procedures. You have to know what you are doing, watching out for disease control and making sure that the bitches on heat do not get out (they will try). You have to invest in large pens, good fences. kennels and rent land.

 

There is a limit on the number of deliveries that one bitch can have per year. A quality pedigree bitch might be limited to one litter but certainly maximum two. It is a lottery how many pups in one litter.

 

A really good quality pedigree pup from a popular breed weaned with all its shots would sell for about $800 if it looks perfect. Sounds like a lot until you look at all the risks.

 

You need to find a piece of land where not many dogs have been so as to reduce the chance of residual viruses (such as parvo). You would have to spray the land against ticks. You have to feed the mother and pay vet bills. And you have to protect your dogs against theft.

 

You should be experienced with the breed and know the signs of heat  - if you are using an outside stud male, it is best to know the best time in the heat period to put the male and female together - otherwise you will pay up to three weeks for the male plus his food.

 

Yes, you can have more than just one breeding female. but then you are now looking at a huge amount of work and a lot more investment in terms of controlling/training the dogs, hygiene and healthcare. I think that if you were lucky you might make about $1,000 and $2,000 per bitch per year but that would depend on whether she had more than one litter per year and a hell of a lot of luck to get the $2,000.

 

In terms of starting, you would either need to buy weaned puppies or at least one or two older females from someone getting out of the business. Your older females might be sold for a reason, such as behaviour problems or cannot get pregnant. In the case of puppies, each quality puppy will cost you $800 and you would have to wait a year and a half before you get to put the now adult female with a male (putting the female too young with the male can destroy their reproduction capability and their health). That is about two years of feeding, training and vet bills before you sell a single puppy (depending on when your bitch comes on heat).

 

If you want to increase your chances of getting more for your puppies, you might want to show the parent, which will require even more training and investment.

 

And don't foreget the meticulous record keeping!

 

This is not a business for people who just do not absolutely love dogs and want to be around them all the time. If a person wanted to get into the business, I would suggest they work for one of the professional breeders for a year to get a taste for what the job, or better still the life, is like!

[Bob12345]

1 hour ago, jackdd said:

This would then be step 2, if step 1 shows that this could be a viable business. But of course with the focus on being a profitable business, not a hobby.

Its like seeing your neigbors open a restaurant and they brag about the profit, so you do the same. Sure you are not much of a cook, but you can just download recipes from the internet, right?

 

If you dont have a passion for dogs you should not start breeding dogs. Every minute you (they) spend reading up on dogs will be torture and you (they) will never go a step further to get a competitive advantage. A dog lover does this all for fun; they don't see it as work and enjoy every experience they can get with dogs even if it costs them money.

 

See the post above this one (proboscis) for what it takes before you can even consider bringing your first dog home. 

 

There are millions of Thais setting up business hoping to earn lots of money. Only a tiny percentage succeeds and i'll bet you that the ones who succeed do something in the field they love and invest huge amounts of time.

[MyFriend You]

Having raised Huskies for sled dogs in the US North East, I can tell you it can be a very lucrative business....we made sometimes $1500-2000 a pup - but that said, breeding dogs to sell as pets is very time consuming, expensive, and heart breaking when the pups die from time t time.  You already said 'because of health reason'  Hmmm  they are better off opening up a  Cafe Amazon Franchise in their local Gas Station.  no muss, always makes money, I can't walk past my neighborhood Amazon Coffee shop without stopping in "to let the world go by" for half an hour.  Drink a cuppa, read the paper, great stress reducer, raising dogs is not a stress reducer.

Edited October 24, 2017 by TunnelRat69

[Get Real]

No good business at all. I tried it with Pomeranian before, and we just ended up with having to give them away. Better stick to the crab and prawn idea.

[hdkane]

Unless you plan to target farang as owners, please do not breed dogs here. Ask yourself honestly if you ever seen a thai take good care of a dog?  Out of all the Thai owners, how many do you see walking their dogs? Giving them enough food? Even teaching the dogs to be nonaggressive?

 

Really...think twice if you have an ethical bone in your body...

[Orton Rd]

The worst business idea here I have ever heard of. Thais mostly cannot look after dogs, so breeding them to sell is going to lead to a life of misery for them. Likely left alone all day in the house or yard stressed, bored and usually barking at anything that moves. No benefit to anyone least of all the dogs.