Beta Adult Large Breed review

Our Average band holds this food, a step under the typical adult dry food, so the placing says ordinary rather than poor. The turkey meal is genuine and declared, and the fat level is sensibly restrained for a heavy breed. What stops it climbing is the unnamed fat, the vague digest and a carbohydrate load that leans on grain. Protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Average, with transparency a step up at Good.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey meal (28%), Wheat, Corn, Wheat middling, Poultry fat, Dried beet pulp, Dried chicory root (1%), Digest, Minerals, Fish oil, Dried carrot (0.07%), Dried spinach (0.07%), Dried parsley (0.07%), Natural ingredients, Natural Prebiotic

Turkey meal at 28% is the protein engine. As a rendered, dried meal it goes in already concentrated, which is how a recipe carrying this much grain still declares 25% protein.

Wheat, maize and wheat middlings stack up immediately behind the turkey, putting grain in charge of the carbohydrate, which converts to an estimated 50.0% of dry matter. Dogs with no grain issues simply burn it as fuel; a dog with a known wheat history is the one reader this base suits least.

Poultry fat supplies the energy and fish oil brings omega 3s, a welcome sight in a large breed recipe where skin and joints appreciate the support. Neither the fat nor the digest names its species, which is the recipe's main transparency gap.

Beet pulp and chicory root at 1% look after the gut, while the dried carrot, spinach and parsley at 0.07% each add more to the label than to the bowl.

The trace minerals are fully dosed in print, zinc at 110 mg/kg at the head of the list, with selenium in its plainer sodium selenite form. At 362 kcal per 100g the energy density sits near the 357 typical of adult dry food, and the restrained 11% fat keeps portions kind to a frame that punishes extra weight.

Sold in a single 14kg bag size.

The label works in 5kg steps: 375 grams a day for a 30kg dog on normal activity, 455 grams at 40kg and 530 grams at 50kg. Big dogs hide weight change under bulk, so run your hands over the ribs now and then rather than trusting the scoop alone.