Two experiments were conducted to study the effect of fermentation and germination on the nutritive value of barley for Japanese quail. In the first experiment, 72 male 13-week-old Japanese quails were used to determine the apparent metabolizable energy corrected for nitrogen (AME_N) of barley samples. In the second experiment, 720 7-day-old Japanese quails were randomly assigned to a 3 × 3 factorial design experiment. The factors include 3 processing methods (untreated, fermentation, germination) and 3 (0, 0.25, or 0.50 g · kg^–1) levels of a β-glucanase preparation (Safizym GP 500) containing mainly β-glucanase activities. Each treatment group consisted of 4 replicates of 20 birds. Germination and fermentation decreased (p < 0.05) the non-starch polysaccharide (NSP) content and increased (P < 0.01) the AME_N content of barley. Germination or fermentation of barley and addition of the enzyme preparation to the diet improved body weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR), carcass, breast, and thigh weights of quails (p < 0.05). Fermentation of barley showed the highest impact on the reduction of NSP in barley and on performance in quails. It is concluded that fermentation and germination can be used to improve the growth rate and FCR of growing quail fed diets based on barley without supplementing enzymes, but fermentation has a better effect on performance and reduction of NSP.