Bosch Adult: Lamb & Rice review

Both varieties finish in our Average band, a step under the Good the typical adult dry food earns. Two things drive that reading: protein converts to a modest 23.4% of dry matter once the cereals are accounted for, and carbohydrate runs in the mid fifties against a typical 46.2%. Neither is a fault a healthy adult will feel in the bowl, and the pillars tell a fairer story, with transparency reading no lower than Average on either bag.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh poultry (20%), rice (16%), barley, millet [milo], maize, poultry fat, dried lamb protein (4%), desugared beet pulp, protein hydrolysate, millet [yellow], fish meal, dried peas, fish oil, dried yeast (incl. 0.1% mannan oligosaccharides, 0.06% β-glucans), sodium chloride, potassium chloride, green-lipped mussel extract (0.1%), dried chicory.

Both recipes stand on cereal: rice, barley, maize and two kinds of millet between them, including milo, which is sorghum by another name. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 56.5% of dry matter in the Fish & Potato and 55.8% in the Lamb & Rice, both above the 46.2% typical for adult dry food.

The animal side is poultry first in both, as a concentrated meal in one recipe and fresh at 20% in the other, with the billed flavours at 4% apiece. Poultry is a perfectly digestible protein group, but the label never says which bird, which only matters if your dog needs a precise answer.

The thoughtful touches are real: desugared beet pulp for gentle fibre, a yeast entry supplying prebiotic mannan oligosaccharides and beta glucans, and dried chicory as a second prebiotic. Green-lipped mussel extract at 0.1% joins them, the shellfish best known for its anti-inflammatory omega 3s and a welcome sight on a mainstream label.

Fish oil and fish meal appear in both recipes, so neither is fish free, the lamb variety included.

Calcium is declared, at 1.14% and 1.2% of dry matter respectively, and the zinc arrives partly chelated at 45 mg per kilo alongside 70 mg as oxide, a mixed approach that improves on oxide alone.

Fresh poultry at 20% opens this list with rice at 16% behind it, and the lamb arrives as a dried protein at 4%. A dog steering around chicken gets no guarantee here, since the poultry could be any bird.

£2.93 a kilo for the Fish & Potato and £2.91 for the Lamb & Rice when we checked, in 15kg bags with a 2 x 15kg twin pack sold alongside.

That puts a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition at roughly 231 grams and £0.67 to £0.68 a day, based on the usual maintenance assumption of about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The bag's table asks 205 grams for the same dog.