| Resumo: | Hooded barley, a new type of barley (Hordeum vulgare), is characterized by having a natural mutation that leads to develop an extra sterile flower in the spikelet, producing beardless spikes. Possible advantages of this new barley for animal feeding are related with the absence of awns, avoiding hurting oral cavity of animals and expecting to be more palatable. Whit this aim, the ingestibility and nutritive value of the hooded barley cv. Mochona were assessed, in comparison with a triticale cv. Titania as a reference, in sheep. Twelve multiparous, dry and open Manchega ewes (80.3 ± 3.4 kg live weight) were allocated in 2 balanced groups (n = 6), housed in metabolic cages and submitted to two consecutive experiments in which hay and silage of each forage, produced in similar experimental plots, were fed ad libitum. Each experiment consisted of adaptation (15 days, including training to metabolic cages), measurement and sampling (5 days) and washout (7 days). Obtained results showed that, despite the preservation method, both forages showed few differences in chemical composition. Nevertheless, the ingestibility of the barley tended to be greater than that of triticale, the differences between them being greater with regard to dry matter digestibility (44.0 vs. 46.0%, respectively; P < 0.05).This difference was a consequence of the greater content of lignin acid detergent observed in the hooded barley when compared to triticale. Consequently, the net energy content and the nutritive value of the hooded barley were slightly lower than that of the triticale. Regarding the forage preservation method, no differences were detected in terms of ingestibility and digestibility, although the digestibility of neutral detergent fibre was greater in hays than in silages. Moreover, hays tended to show better compositional values than silages, and, as a whole, resulted more palatable and digestible. In conclusion, under our conditions, the Mochona hooded barley showed a similar composition but a lower nutritive value than the Titania triticale. More research at medium and long terms is necessary to validate these results and to test other barley varieties and forage preservation methods (e.g. haylage) to show the effects of awn elimination.
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