The gene dropping method was applied to the pedigree of Danish Shorthorn in order to estimate the proportion of alleles of the old type of Danish Shorthorn in the population of 1997.

It was found that about 23% of the alleles in the population of 1997 originated from the old type. Of 21 base animals of the old type, alleles of seven animals were completely lost in the gene dropping while only six base animals contributed with 20.2% of the alleles in the 1997 population. Inbreeding coefficients ranged from zero to 35.6% with a mean of 4.1%.

The beef cattle breed Danish Shorthorn is used as a model for simulation of four variations of the circular mating scheme running for 50 years. Schemes 1 and 2 used a fixed exchange of bulls between female groups while schemes 3 and 4 used a random exchange of bulls between female groups. The number of bulls used in schemes 1 and 4 was 16 while the number of bulls used in schemes 2 and 3 was 8. Inbreeding levels were computed and gene dropping was applied to estimate the risk of founder allele loss. In the population of year 50 the inbreeding levels for the four mating schemes are not statistically different. The male founder alleles contribute strongly to the population of year 50. The female founder alleles are in greater risk of being lost than the male founder alleles.