Abstract
Summary
Water-treated barley taken from drying oven contained many more bacteria than untreated barley, even though drying temperature was 70°C. The nutritional value of sterilized barley inoculated with Gram-positive rod isolated from dust, or with B. subtilis (ATCC 9943) and dried at 70°C was highly significantly improved. Large inoculations of the organism isolated and grown in nutrient broth elicited a significant growth response. This response was not as great as that obtained by water-treatment or addition of fungal enzyme to the feed. Autoclaving did not lower nutritional value of water-treated barley. This fact indicates that the change(s) responsible for improvement was effected prior to feeding and was not due to presence of an enzyme(s) produced during treatment process that later acts on barley in the digestive tract of the chick.
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