ENERGY AND PROTEIN DIGESTIBILITIES OF HULLED AND HULLESS BARLEY DETERMINED BY SWINE-FEEDING

Abstract

Digestibility of gross energy (D) and digestible energy (DE) of four near-isogenic hulled and hulless 2- and 6-row barleys were determined by swine-feeding. On the average, the hulless barley had 11.1% more gross energy (D) and 14.7% or 1824 kJ/kg more digestible energy (DE) than the hulled barley (14 217 vs. 12 393 kJ/kg; 81.8 vs. 73.6%). Digestibility of protein from hulless barley was superior to that from hulled barley (65.8 vs. 58.6%) only in the 2-row cultivars. The D and DE data corroborated results obtained previously with hulled and hulless barley by mouse-feeding.