Applaws Adult Small & Medium: Chicken review

Both varieties read Excellent on our scale, and the typical adult dry food settles a band lower in Good, so this range clears most of the market by a comfortable margin. The two finish a point apart, close enough that you can choose on recipe alone.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 50% (Chicken Meal 36%, Freshly Prepared Chicken* 14%), Potato*, Poultry Fat, Poultry Gravy*, Dried Peas*, Dried Beet Pulp*, Dried Egg Powder*, Dried Brewer's Yeast*, Vitamins & Minerals, Salmon Oil 1.5%, Vegetable Fibres*, Dried Chicory* 0.35% (a Source of Prebiotic FOS), Dried Seaweed*, Lucerne Meal*, Yeast Wall (a Source of Beta-Glucans and Prebiotic MOS), Dried Tomato*, Dried Carrot*, Dried Parsley*, Dried Peppermint*, Dried Yucca Schidigera*, Dried Rosehip*, Glucosamine 200 mg/kg, Chondroitin Sulphate 200 mg/kg, Dried Basil*, Dried Turmeric*, Cranberry Powder*, Dried Carob*, Dried Ginger*, Dried Dandelion Root*, Inactivated Lactobacillus Helveticus 0.005%, Inactivated Lacticaseibacillus Paracasei 0.005%, Dried Paprika*. *Natural Ingredients.

Chicken meal leads the declaration with freshly prepared chicken behind it, and that order works in the buyer's favour. Meal has already lost its water, so the protein it promises is the protein the finished kibble keeps. The analysis shows it: protein at 36%, or 39.6% of dry matter, with estimated carbohydrate converting to 31.3% of dry matter, comfortably under the 46.2% seen from the typical adult dry food.

Potato carries the starch with dried peas alongside, keeping grain off the list entirely. Beet pulp handles fibre, dried chicory at 0.35% brings prebiotic FOS, and yeast wall contributes MOS and beta glucans, all pointed at digestive comfort.

Salmon oil at 1.5% is the omega source, a genuinely useful inclusion that does put fish into both recipes. Egg powder and dried brewer's yeast broaden the protein base, and the joint pair arrives with figures attached: glucosamine at 200 mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 200 mg/kg.

The herbs and fruits from seaweed through to paprika sit at trace level, a flourish on top of the recipe. Two inactivated Lactobacillus cultures are in there too, at 0.005% each. The one thing the label keeps to itself is the vitamin and mineral detail, declared as a single collective entry with no doses attached.

Chicken at 50% of the recipe, split between chicken meal at 36% and freshly prepared chicken at 14%. The shorter ingredient list of the pair, with no second meat added on top of the chicken.

The chicken recipe comes in 1kg, 4kg and 12kg bags; the chicken with lamb is sold in 4kg and 12kg.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would work through roughly 221 grams a day on our standard maintenance estimate of about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The label asks 200 to 240 grams for dogs between 13kg and 17kg, so the two guides agree closely.