Research On Animal Production

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of barley cultivars and their feeding form on performance, jejunal digesta viscosity, nutrients digestibility and blood parameters of broiler chickens. A total of 512 day-old chicks (Ross 308), as mixed sex, were assigned to experimental treatments using a completely randomized design with factorial arrangement (4×2) for a period of 42 days. Barley cultivars were Dasht, Sahra, CB-74-2 and Makoei and feeding forms were in whole and ground as well. According to the results, barley cultivar had no significant effect on broilers performance and feeding whole grain increased feed intake and feed conversion ratio of the birds (P<0.05). On day 28, the highest amount of jejunal digesta viscosity (P<0.05) and the lowest digestibility of organic matter and energy (P<0.001) were observed by CB-74-2 and Sahra cultivars, respectively. The birds receiving Makoei cultivar had the highest level of triglyceride, total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and VLDL-cholesterol in their sera at 24 days of age (P<0.0001). Ingestion of whole grain increased total and LDL-cholesterol and decreased HDL-cholesterol levels of the sera (P<0.01). Based on the results, while the barley cultivars showed different effects on some studied parameters, they had similar influence on broiler growth performance and their whole feeding form failed to improve the birds' performance.