The Vallcalent Wildlife Centre has been managing the captive breeding and reintroduction programme of the Lesser Grey Shrike (Lanius minor) in Catalonia for years. To this end, it has a large breeding stock, which is expected to increase in the coming years.
The diet supplied to these animals until now, although effective, has some drawbacks: a high cost in terms of the food to be supplied, a high cost in terms of the time required for its preparation and supply, and insufficient versatility when it comes to precisely formulating its nutritional composition.

This project aims to optimise the dietary management protocols for this species, as well as to improve the nutritional characteristics of the diet itself.

It is planned to develop a maintenance feed in gel format, based on a Tenebrio molitor flour, with the desired nutritional characteristics.
To do this, the acceptance of this feed format by the animals will first have to be verified.
From this point onwards, the actual experiment will begin with the supply of the diet developed to successive groups of animals selected for their representativeness of the breeding stock as a whole, and the subsequent monitoring and evaluation of results.