Chocolate Meulemans - genetic alchemy...
or, how to make chocolate without cocoa, by David Shipley
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It didn’t start out as a “chocolate crusade”, but that’s where it’s ended up. My curiosity was pricked when I read a chapter on the subject in Victor van Salen’s excellent book “Masters of Breeding and Racing” and then further stimulated by a photo of a chocolate Meulemans cock posted on Facebook by Spencer Jackson of Timbarra, which was a son of our Meulemans stock cock "Jericho", GB08N47811. Jericho was a gift to me from Spencer, as I’d mentioned that I wanted to obtain pigeons as closely line bred to the Wouters-Meulemans original “Golden Couple” as possible.
The "Golden Couple" of Wouters-Meulemans
For those who are unaware, the Golden Couple comprised "De Oude van den Bosch", BELG67-6729926 and "De Blauw Janssen", BELG66-6122023 and they were responsible for a dynasty of winning pigeons for Meulemans and many more top fliers. I already had a number of birds that contained the blood of the Golden Pair, but in very diluted form.
Studying the pedigrees (click on the links to view the pedigrees) of Jericho and his four grandparents "El Tigre Cher" (NL91-1442370), "Kadet 8000 Duifje" (NL95-2725767), "Bingo" (NL94-2775220) and "Schoon 075" (NL97-2608075), which were all bred by Herman Beverdam from direct introductions he had obtained from Karel Meulemans, you can see the Golden Couple on virtually every line of every ancestor. In fact, they sit 78 times in Jericho and make up almost 72% of his blood.
When Jericho arrived with me as a 12 year old in November 2020, he was very nervous and when I put him in with the stock cocks, they immediately started bullying him. I decided to separate him, but to give him some company, put our sweetest old hen with him, which just happened to be a daughter of Jan Hooymans’ "Cees" (NL07-2007622), the nestmate to his famous "Harry" (NL07-2007621). Jericho and daughter Cees bonded immediately and twelve days later, the hen laid.
"Jericho" and "Dochter Cees", about a day after meeting
Only one egg hatched, but this was a great Christmas present during the Covid nonsense, when the rest of the world had virtually stopped. I decided to put a special ring from those that were allocated to me, so that I would always remember, and NL21-1115888 was the ring I chose. "Cees Jericho" as the child became known, turned into a very beautiful smokey blue hen and we noticed quite early on that her bars were not completely black, but more of a kind of bronze colour.
"Jericho" and "Cees Jericho"
"Cees Jericho"
In 2022, Jericho was 14 and suffered with acute arthritis, which limited his movement quite a bit. We decided to pair him back to Cees Jericho in the summer, to concentrate his genes a bit more for the future.
As Spencer Jackson said in an online blog in 2009:
“The recessive [chocolate] gene originates from the mother of De Oude van den Bosch, which is the cock of the golden couple of the Meulemans colony, the chocolate colour is expressed in slightly different shades and is popular with some people. I have this colour running through my entire loft and as I am aware have the recessive gene in 45 out of 46 breeders. it can be passed through generation to generation but will never show up unless the said individual carrying the gene is paired to another individual which also carries the gene, then 1 in 4 youngsters or 25% ratio chocolates will be bred.
Chocolate paired to chocolate will breed 100% chocolates every nest”.
It did cross my mind that the bronze colouration in Cees Jericho might mean that she had taken the chocolate gene from her father and if so, there would be a one in four chance that a youngster from the pairing might be a chocolate.
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Cees Jericho laid two nice eggs and everything looked fine. Unfortunately, after a few days, we noticed that one egg was damaged, presumably because Jericho was unable to sit lightly due to his arthritis. We quickly floated the other egg to another pair and crossed our fingers.
One morning, soon afterwards, I went into the loft and saw a bird dead on the floor. I immediately thought that this was Jericho and that he’d succumbed to old age. Then, I looked over to the nest and there he was, sitting the dummy eggs we’d put a few days before.
Happily, a healthy youngster was born and after 10 days or so, it became apparent that it would probably be a chocolate!
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I'm not sure why, but I decided to recover the "special" (though perhaps not very lucky) ring from Cees Jericho and placed it on the new chocolate baby, so it now carries an old ring.
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The first photo here was taken when he was a couple of months old and was developing nicely.
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The second photo was taken by Robert Borneman in February 2024.
Who knows whether it will be any good - chocolate doesn’t necessarily mean good pigeon, but I find it fascinating that this colour can appear as if by magic, if the conditions are right.
"Choco Cees Jericho"
"Cees Jericho" and "Jericho" sitting their nest
