Able Adult: Chicken and Duck review

Every recipe here sits in our Outstanding band. Raw is the strongest field we cover, and the typical adult raw food earns the same band word. The achievement here is holding that standard right across the menu, not towering over the category. They all hold that same band, so the scoring cannot separate them. Pick between them on your dog's tastes and tolerances.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 75% (Gizzards 40%, Drumsticks 35%), Duck Liver 5%, Carrot 9.6%, Butternut Squash 2.5%, Broccoli 2.5%, Kale 2.5%, Flaxseed Meal 2%, Kelp Meal 0.2%, Cod Liver Oil 0.15%, Wheatgerm Oil 0.15%, Cranberries 0.15%, Blueberries 0.15%, Botanicals 0.1% (Turmeric, Spirulina Powder, Green Lipped Mussel Powder, Chicory Root Powder, Spinach Powder, Bilberry Powder, Gingko Biloba Powder).

Every recipe follows the same arithmetic: 80% meat first, then a vegetable fraction led by carrot with butternut squash, broccoli and kale behind it. Flaxseed meal brings fibre and omega fats, and a scattering of extras finishes the list. The meat is working cuts, drumsticks, hearts, gizzards, ribs and livers instead of fillet, with bone in the grind carrying the calcium the way a raw recipe is meant to.

There is no added vitamin and mineral premix anywhere in the range. Able's stated position is that the whole ingredients do that job themselves: kelp for iodine, cod liver oil for vitamin D, wheatgerm oil for vitamin E, and the B vitamins arriving with the organ meats. It is a coherent whole-food philosophy, and the liver and offal in every recipe are what make it credible.

Cod liver oil earns its place twice, for vitamin D and for omega 3 fats, but it also puts fish into all nine recipes. Most dogs will never notice; it simply matters if you are keeping fish out of the bowl, because no version of this range does that.

The botanical pinch at 0.1% includes green lipped mussel powder, an ingredient with a joint-care reputation. At that inclusion it is a gesture, and the printed percentage is honest about it. The turmeric and spirulina at the end of the tail read the same way: seasoning on top of a recipe that stands on its meat.

Carbohydrate is estimated by difference, and with no starch ingredient anywhere in the range the figure mostly reads as a sweeping-up of everything unmeasured. Two recipes estimate at zero and most sit low. Where a figure looks high, as with the Beef and Lamb with Duck at 35.4% of dry matter, read the ingredients list instead: meat and vegetables with a spoonful of extras.

Chicken at 75%, split as gizzards at 40% and drumsticks at 35%, with duck liver at 5% as the organ share. It is the lightest recipe of the nine at 124 kcal per 100g, so portions run largest here.

Every recipe is £6.05 a kilo. Portions come in sizes from 150g up to 500g, sold singly or in multipack boxes of roughly 4kg to 5kg, and each recipe can be ordered in a chunky or a non chunky grind.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), daily feeding lands between £2.72 and £4.10 depending on the recipe. The spread comes from energy density: every recipe is the same per kilo, but the lighter ones feed in larger portions.