The Stabiliser™ Breed

The Stabiliser™ breed is a composite breed developed in North America by Lee Leachman of Colorado (www.leachman.com). In the United States the breed is spelt Stabilizer! The Stabiliser™ breed was introduced into this country in 1998 by Richard Fuller of the Beef Improvement Group based in Yorkshire (www.bigbeef.co.uk).  The breed is proving to be very successful as it performs well in all key areas of the production cycle.

The aim of the breed is to harness hybrid vigour by combining several different breeds to produce a uniform, medium size, docile, beef cow that calves easily, is early maturing with good fertility, is feed efficient and produces slaughter animals with consistent conformation.  This all adds up to a more profitable animal.

The original breeds used to produce the Stabiliser were  a mix of traditional British breeds and maternal Continental breeds. 
This has produced animals with the following attributes:

Medium size cow with a mature weight of 600-650kg – lower inputs and provides opportunities to keep more cows on the available farm resources.

Good Feed Efficiency –genetically selected to reduce feed costs both for maintenance and finishing

Docile – easy handling and less stress

Low Birth Weights – very little assistance needed with calving, enables rapid re-breeding of the cow

Small, Vigorous Calves – usually up and suckling within 30 minutes of birth, then grow on quickly

Good mothers – strong maternal instincts and optimum milk production

Early Maturing – heifers breed at 15 months to calve at 2 years.  Bulls VERY keen to work at a young age

Good Fertility – good conceptions rates with both Ai and natural service, reduces herd calving index

Uniform conformation – helps meet carcass weight and grade specifications

High Eating Quality Beef – helps build consumer loyalty and special schemes available for finished animals

Performance Recording – high accuracy EBVs that incorporate data from the global Stabiliser ™ population

£Weaning, £Finisher and £Profit Selection Indexes – developed by Lee Leachman to measure an animal’s genetic potential in monetary terms and only available for animals registered with the Stabiliser™  Cattle Company.

EBVs regularly updated for all registered animals

For more details on the Stabiliser™  breed visit www.bigbeef.co.uk.