Burns Original Adult/Senior: Lamb & Brown Rice review

Set beside the typical adult dry food, the lamb finishes level with it in our Good band, while the chicken and the fish sit a step below in Average. The range gets there by a very different route from most foods in that company. The ingredients side reads better than the position suggests, and every entry names itself. Zinc and manganese are supplied as amino acid chelates, and all three labels carry a dosed helping of taurine.

What holds the total where it is, is the balance rather than the quality. Brown rice takes the top line, carbohydrate lands well above what a dry food typically carries, and protein and fat both stay deliberately modest. That is the maker's philosophy at work, not a corner cut. Nutritional balance reads Poor on all three as a result. Protein and processing is Average on the chicken and the lamb and Poor on the fish, with transparency Outstanding or Excellent by recipe. For a steady adult or a dog slowing down with age, it is a very sensible way to build a bowl.

Ingredients, as declared: Brown Rice (58%), Dried Lamb (24%), Oats, Lamb Fat, Peas, Seaweed (0.5%), Minerals.

Brown rice heads all three recipes, from 58% in the lamb up to 67% in the chicken. Whole brown rice is a gentle and digestible grain, and its starch arrives with fibre and a spread of micronutrients. Here it is the engine of the food. The consequence shows in the analysis: carbohydrate converts to between 60.3% and 62.5% of dry matter, where the typical adult dry food runs at 46.2%.

The meat goes in dried, at 20% in the chicken and the fish and 24% in the lamb. The water is out of it before the mixer sees it. What the label prints is therefore close to what lands in the finished kibble, and that is worth more than a larger fresh figure would be. Protein ends up at around 20.1% to 20.3% of dry matter.

Oats and peas fill in behind the rice. Oats digest easily once cooked, and they carry fibre along with manganese, B vitamins and selenium. Whole peas add more fibre and some antioxidant value, plus a little plant protein. Neither is doing anything clever, and neither needs to.

Seaweed at 0.5% is the one flourish on the list, a natural source of iodine and a long list of other minerals, which is why the quantity is printed and kept small. Every recipe carries taurine at a dosed 1000 mg per kilo, and taurine is the amino acid people add for the heart. Zinc and manganese both arrive as amino acid chelates, an easily absorbed form.

Fat stays low at 7.5% throughout, supplied by chicken oil, salmon oil, lamb fat or sunflower oil depending on which bag you pick. Sunflower oil is one of the better plant oils to find in a dog food, low in saturated fat and naturally rich in vitamin E.

The meatiest label of the three, dried lamb at 24% with brown rice pulled back to 58%. Lamb fat does the work the seed oils do elsewhere, and this is the only recipe here without sunflower oil. More dried red meat means more bone, which shows as ash at 8.7% of dry matter and calcium at 2.17%, both the highest in the range.

£5.58 a kilo across all three recipes, sold in 2kg, 6kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at between 257 and 260 grams a day, or £1.43 to £1.45 a day depending on the recipe. That estimate takes a daily requirement of about 840 kcal, using the standard maintenance calculation of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. The label's own table asks 140 grams for a 10kg dog and 280 grams for a 20kg one, which brackets the estimate neatly, so let your dog's shape settle the exact scoop.