Effect of Hulled and Hull-Less Barley With and Without Beta-Glucanase Enzyme on Performance of Broiler Chicks

Three hundred and sixty one-day-old chicks (Arian) were used in a completely randomized design with five treatments and four replicates for each treatment. The experimental treatments included: control group (without barley) with and without enzyme, 20% hulled barley with and without enzyme, 20% hull-less barley with and without enzyme. Body weights, feed intake and feed conversion were determined weekly. At 49d four chicks were chosen randomly from each pen and killed, abdominal fat pad, liver, pancreas, gizzard and digestive tract were removed, weighed and expressed as percentage of live weight. The ME values of hulled and hull-less barley with and without enzyme were determined with adult roosters. The results indicated AMEn and TMEn values of hull-less were higher than hulled barley. De-hull processing and inclusion of beta-glucanase enzyme did not improve growth performance at 20% usage of barley in broiler diets.