Butchers Recipes In Gravy Can: With Turkey & Garden Veg review

Our Excellent band is where all three of these tins come to rest, so close together that the only real decision is which animal you want on the front. Wet food is a strong field for us, and the middle of it falls in our Excellent band. These sit level with the middle of a good shelf, nowhere near the foot of it.

Plenty here counts in their favour. Protein converts to 41.7% of dry matter, the meat is named with real percentages, and there is no cereal to dilute it. What holds them back is everything the list does not describe: the gravy has no entry of its own, the plant fibres are anonymous, and the liver could come from any animal.

Ingredients, as declared: British and Irish Farmed Meats (Chicken 42%, Turkey 4%, Liver 4%), Carrots 3%, Parsnip 1%, Salmon Oil, Plant Fibres, Vitamins and Minerals, Chicory Root, MOS.

Chicken is the backbone of the range, at 42% in the beef and turkey tins and 46% in the chicken one, all of it British and Irish farmed. Listed by its plain name it reads as fresh chicken rather than a dried meal. No meat turns up in dog food more often, and for good reasons: it is palatable and easy on most digestions. That ubiquity is also why chicken sensitivity shows up more often than sensitivity to any other meat.

Liver at 4% is a genuinely useful inclusion. Organ meat of this kind is dense in B vitamins, copper and iron and is highly palatable, which is part of why these tins go down well. Which animal the liver comes from is not printed, so a household excluding one species precisely will not get an answer from the tin.

The vegetables are small and named: parsnip, sweet potato, carrots or peas at 3% and 1% depending on the recipe. Cooked carrot digests easily and whole peas bring a spread of vitamins and minerals, though at these percentages they are seasoning rather than substance. With no cereal in the tin, the estimated carbohydrate still reaches 18.3% of dry matter against a 15.8% norm for adult wet food. The figure comes out by difference from the analysis on the label, and that runs high on a wet recipe when the gravy has no entry of its own.

Salmon oil, chicory root and MOS close every list. The chicory brings inulin and the MOS comes from yeast cell walls. Both are prebiotics, food for the gut bacteria you want to encourage. Plant fibres sit alongside them without saying which plants, which is the one entry on the list that could change between batches without the label changing with it.

The added panel is brief, and every line on it carries its dose. Vitamin A at 1250 I.U., vitamin D3 at 250 I.U., vitamin E at 13 mg, with zinc at 20 mg, manganese at 2.5 mg and iodine at 0.5 mg. Printed doses are more than a good many tins offer.

Chicken at 42% with turkey and liver at 4% each, and carrots at 3% with parsnip at 1%. Turkey runs leaner than chicken, and this tin suits a dog tired of seeing chicken on the front of the label.

Sold in 400g cans, in packs of 6, 12 and 18.

Working from an energy estimate of 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance calculation), that dog would eat about 977 grams a day. That is a little under two and a half cans. The label's own guide for a dog of that weight runs between 600 and 1000 grams.