Sorgum and Teff?

[RandomWiktor]

I DIY my seed/grain mixes and have been slowly moving in the direction of reducing and in some cases eliminating gluten rich grains; in addition to being potentially inflammatory, I simply haven't found them to be as nutrient dense as many of the gluten free grains out there.

So far I feed a good mix of quinoa (red and plain), amaranth, rices, kasha, millet grain, etc. I'm now looking into Teff and Sorgum. Sorgum seems like a great low fat, high protien product. And Teff has a good deal of calcium, definitely a bonus.

Has anyone tried these two grains? If yes, did the parrots like it? Any tips for cooking?

 

[piercesdesigns]

I use teff flour in cooking. I have not used it as a grain. I am not sure I have seen it available as a grain.

 

[Merlie]

Here's what I have on Sorgum <also known as Milo> .. from what I understand .. it's okay to feed but not for sprouting purposes.

Warning on Sprouting Milo

Sprouting seeds is often touted as offering numerous
benefits. Milo provides an example where sprouting turns a
nutritious seed into a potentially deadly sprout.

At least 2,000 species of plants contain cyanogenic
glycosides. These are chemicals that may produce HCN when the
plant cells are disrupted. Young sorghum (milo) plants are one of
these, and the cyanogenic glycoside in this plant is dhurrin.
According to the abstract at:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=1061924

"The seed and root contain neither dhurrin nor the
dhurrin-synthesizing enzyme system."

So, feeding the seeds is not a toxicity risk. However, the
germinated seeds very quickly produce levels of dhurrin that are
potentially lethal to birds. The above URL has a link to the full
paper, and on page 1556 Figure 5 (attached) indicates that when
the sprout is ~ 0.25" in length, the concentration of dhurrin is
high enough to produce ~21 micromol HCN/g of HCN (fresh weight).
That corresponds to about:

1000mg/g * 21e-6 mol HCN/g(fresh weight) * 27g HCN/mol = 0.57mg HCN/g(fresh
weight)

The LD50 dose of HCN for birds is ~10mg/kg[1], so half of a group
of 1000g birds will die after ingesting 10mg HCN (actually,
probably considerably more because the toxicities reported in the
reference below were determined with NaCN, and it's the CN ion
that is responsible for the toxicity. Thus the predicted LD50 for
HCN vs NaCN should be in the ratio of their molecular weights,
i.e., 27/49, so ~5mg HCN should be as toxic as 10 mg NaCN). This
NaCN LD50 would require ingesting ~ 18g of freshly sprouted
milo. This is less than 2% of the birds' body weight.

If I haven't blundered in the calculation, feeding freshly
sprouted milo is quite dangerous unless it's a very small part of
the sprout mix.

[1] _Journal of Wildlife Diseases_, 22(4), 1986, pp. 538-546
ACUTE ORAL TOXICITY OF SODIUM CYANIDE IN BIRDS
Stanley N. Wiemeyer, Elwood F. Hill, James W. Carpenter, and
Alexander J. Krynitsky
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center,
Laurel, Maryland 20708, USA

 

[RandomWiktor]

Excellent info, thanks for the heads up. I planned on using it as a cooked grain anyways but that's VERY good to know.