Toxicological effects of feeding first cut sorghum vegetation and stalks to rabbits.

We assessed toxic effects associated with sorghum feeding to rabbits. For this purpose 18 rabbits of almost same body weight and age were randomly divided into three groups (six animals per group) designated as A, B and C. Animals of each group were caged separately providing similar and standard environmental conditions. Group A (control) was fed on grass; group B was fed on sorghum stalks and group C was fed on sorghum leaves. Hematological studies revealed erythrocytopenia, leukocytopenia, decreased hemoglobin and lowered erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) in group B as compared to group A and C from day 10 to 30 of the experiment. Biochemical analysis revealed methemoglobinemia and high level of liver enzymes alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) of group B as compared to group A and C from day 10 to 30 of the experiment. This indicates that these hematological abnormalities may be associated with sorghum stalk feeding in experimental rabbits. Further we analyzed the nitrate level of sorghum stalk, leaves and grass which we used in our experiments. We determined its highest level (1480ppm) in sorghum stalk as compared to sorghum leaves (850ppm) and grass (736ppm). We can not rule out that nitrate in sorghum stalk led to the observed toxicity, but this needs further investigation. Taken together, our observations show that sorghum stalks are more toxic than sorghum leaves when fed to laboratory animals like rabbits.