Metabolizable Energy and Digestibility Coefficients of Barley for Chicks as Influenced by Water Treatment or by Presence of Fungal Enzyme

THE metabolizable energy (M.E.) of ground barley for poultry has been determined by several investigators (Olsson, 1950; Halnan, 1951; Anderson, 1955 Carpenter and Clegg, 1956; Hill et al., 1956, 1960; Potter and Matterson, 1960). In addition, the M.E. of ground barley has been calculated from digestibility coefficients and assumed energy values for the digestible nutrients (Axelsson, 1939; Fraps and Carlyle, 1942; Titus, 1955; Hill et al., 1956). It was shown that the feeding of diets containing water-treated western barley or western barley with added fungal enzyme increased the weight gain of growing chicks over that of chicks fed a diet containing the untreated barley (Fry et al., 1957; Jensen et al., 1957; Willingham et al., 1959). More recently it was found that the M.E. of barley from the same source was increased by water treatment or by the presence of a fungal enzyme (Leong et al., 1962). The objectives of…