Burns Sensitive Duck & Brown Rice review

Set against the wider shelf this food holds our Average band, one step under the Good band the typical adult dry food occupies. Burns trades protein depth for simplicity on purpose: one meat, one main grain and very little else. That is precisely what its sensitive audience is shopping for, even if it wins no rosettes for meat content. Transparency reads Outstanding, with protein and processing Average and nutritional balance Poor, the profile of a recipe doing a specific job competently rather than chasing a headline.

Ingredients, as declared: Brown Rice (64%), Dried Duck (22%), Oats, Peas, Duck Fat, Sunflower Oil, Seaweed (0.5%), Minerals.

Duck is the whole animal story here, and that is the point. Dried duck at 22% goes in with its water already removed, so the share converts efficiently into finished protein, and duck fat keeps even the oil on the same species. Duck digests easily and tastes good to most dogs. It is also uncommon enough that a lot of dogs have never met it, and that is exactly what you want when chicken has become the suspect.

Brown rice at 64% carries the energy, with oats behind it. Between them the carbohydrate estimate reaches 61.9% of dry matter, against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. The label does not declare moisture, so the dry matter sums assume the standard 8%.

Peas contribute fibre and a little plant protein, sunflower oil brings linoleic acid for the skin, and seaweed at 0.5% supplies iodine naturally, the quiet signature that appears across the Burns kitchen.

Taurine is dosed at 1000mg per kilo and the trace minerals arrive chelated and itemised, with selenium supplied as selenised yeast at 0.2mg, the organic form generally considered the better one. Calcium converts to 1.3% of dry matter, squarely in the comfortable zone for adults.

£5.75 a kilo across 2kg, 6kg and 12kg bags.

Feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to about £1.45 a day at roughly 253 grams, based on the usual maintenance estimate of about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The pack's feeding table gives 140 grams at 10kg and 280 grams at 20kg.