Effect of Barley and Enzyme on Performance, Carcass, Enzyme Activity and Digestion Parameters of Broilers

Introduction Corn has been recently used for producing ethanol fuel in the major corn-producing countries such as the US and Brazil. Recent diversion of corn for biofuel production along with the increased world's demand for this feedstuff has resulted in unprecedented rise in feed cost for poultry worldwide. Alternative grains such as wheat and barley can be successfully replaced for corn in poultry diets. These cereal grains can locally grow in many parts of the world as they have remarkably lower water requirement than corn. Wheat and barley are generally used as major sources of energy in poultry diets. Though the major components of these grains are starch and proteins, they have considerable content of non-starch polysaccharides (NSPs), derived from the cell walls (Olukosi et al. 2007; Mirzaie et al. 2012). NSPs are generally considered as anti-nutritional factors (Jamroz et al. 2002). The content and structure of NSP polymers vary between different grains, which consequently affect their nutritive value (Olukosi et al. 2007).Wheat and barley are generally used as major sources of energy in poultry diets. The major components of these grains are starch and proteins, they have considerable content of non-starch polysaccharides (NSPs), derived from the cell walls. NSPs are generally considered as anti-nutritional factors. The content and structure of NSP polymers vary between different grains, which consequently affect their nutritive value. The major part of NSPs in barley comprises polymers of (1→3) (1→4)-β- glucans which could impede growth factors and consequently carcass quality through lowering the rate and amount of available nutrients in the mucosal surface of the intestinal. Materials and Methods This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of corn and barley based diets supplemented with multi-enzyme on growth, carcass, pancreas enzyme activity and physiological characteristics of broilers. A total number of 375 one day old Ross-308 broiler chickens were allocated randomly to 3 treatments with 5 replicates using a CRD statistical design. Treatments were included control, barley and barley+ enzyme. The experimental diets were formulated to have similar contents of crude protein, metabolizable energy, total non-starch polysaccharides (NSP). Results and Discussion According to the results, effect of barley with or without enzyme on growth performance at starter, grower and the entire period and also on carcass characteristics, pancreas enzyme activity and measures of ileal acidity and viscosity at the age of 42 were significant (P