Butchers Recovery & Revive Can review

Our Outstanding band is where this tin lands, with nutritional balance and transparency both reading Outstanding. The figures behind that are easy to follow: protein at 44.4% of dry matter, fat at 38.9%, and an estimated carbohydrate of just 1.7% where a typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%. Very little of this tin is anything other than chicken, broth and a small amount of rice.

Wet is a strong field for us, with the middle of it landing in our Excellent band. This tin sits above that middle. Naming the chicken at 50% and declaring the broth with its own percentage are a large part of why.

Ingredients, as declared: British and Irish Farmed Chicken 50%, Broth 39.5% (Including Water and Dried Seaweed), Cooked White Rice 7.5%, Salmon Oil 1%, Minerals, Yeast 0.15% (Prebiotic MOS 0.05%, Beta-Glucans 0.045%), Chicory Root; Prebiotic FOS 0.06%, Yucca 0.005%, Paraprobiotic Lactobacillus Helveticus 0.001%.

Chicken is the whole animal content at 50%, and the label calls it British and Irish farmed. Its plain name on the list points to fresh chicken. Fresh chicken is about as palatable and digestible as everyday meat gets, and that matters more than usual in a tin bought for a dog who is not eating much.

The broth at 39.5% is water with dried seaweed in it, and giving it a percentage is a better piece of labelling than most wet foods manage. Seaweed brings minerals and a natural source of iodine. The label does not split the two out, so the tin gives no way of telling how much seaweed is in there.

The only cereal is cooked white rice at 7.5%, and white rice is the gentlest of them, low in fibre and quickly digested. It is the classic choice for a dog whose digestion has had a rough week. One quirk worth explaining: the carbohydrate estimate reads 0.3% as fed, lower than the rice share alone would suggest. It is worked out by difference from the declared analysis, and this label leaves very little room once protein, fat, ash and moisture are counted.

The interesting end of the list is the gut cluster. Yeast at 0.15% carries MOS at 0.05% and beta-glucans at 0.045%, chicory root brings FOS at 0.06%, and yucca at 0.005% and a paraprobiotic at 0.001% close it out. MOS and FOS are prebiotics, the sort that feed the friendly bacteria already living in the gut. It is a genuine mark in the tin's favour that each one is printed with a dose rather than waved at.

Salmon oil at 1% adds the marine omega oils and, with them, fish. The added panel is generous by the standards of the rest of the brand's tins, with vitamin E at 63 mg and vitamin C at 30 mg. Vitamin A, vitamin D3, manganese, zinc, copper and iodine sit alongside them, all of them dosed in print.

Sold as a single 400g can and in cases of 18 x 390g.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 900 grams a day of this one, taken from an energy estimate of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance calculation). That is a little over two cans, and a dog eating it while their appetite recovers will often take less than that at a sitting.