Chudleys Original review

Chudleys Original scores into our Average band while the typical adult dry food gets to our Good band, with protein and processing and nutritional balance both reading Poor and transparency Average. The reasons are visible on the label. Cereals lead, most of the meat entries go unquantified beyond the poultry meal's declared minimum of 14%, and glucose syrup is not an inclusion our scoring rewards. Read it for what it is, though. This is a working-style maintenance ration, and plenty of dogs rub along contentedly on exactly this kind of recipe.

Ingredients, as declared: Flaked Whole grain wheat, Poultry meal (min 14%), Flaked Whole grain whole grain maize, whole grain wheat, Chicken fat, Glucose syrup, rice Lamb meal, Hydrolysed chicken Flaked peas, Wheatfeed, Unmolassed beet pulp, turkey meal, Prairie meal, Alfalfa, Rapeseed oil, Salmon oil, Minerals, Yeast (source of mannan oligosaccharides), Salmon oil, Full fat linseed, Blackcurrant, Rosemary, Pomegranate, Rosehips, Yucca schidigera, Beetroot

The meat is a committee: poultry meal declared at a minimum of 14%, with lamb meal and turkey meal further down and hydrolysed chicken as the palatant. Meals are concentrated dried forms, so together they hold protein at 21.7% of dry matter, though only the poultry carries a printed figure.

Wheat and maize head the list. Wheatfeed, a by-product of milling, comes in behind them. Carbohydrate is estimated at 56.8% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. That gap is the clearest signature of a cereal-led ration.

Glucose syrup earns a frank mention. It is there for palatability and binding, it is a sugar, and most modern recipes manage without it. One entry does not define a food, but it does tell you the design brief put appetite first.

The supporting cast is more thoughtful than the headline suggests. Unmolassed beet pulp brings gentle fibre and the yeast supplies mannan oligosaccharides. Full fat linseed joins rapeseed and salmon oils to blend the fats, and the tail of fruits and botanicals runs blackcurrant through to beetroot.

For allergy purposes this is the least restrictive recipe imaginable, with wheat, maize, chicken, lamb, turkey and fish all aboard. That breadth suits the robust everyday dog it was built for, and it is simply the wrong tool for the process of elimination.

£2.11 a kilo, in a 14kg sack or a 2.5kg bucket.

Feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition to the standard maintenance estimate, about 840 kcal a day from 110 × bodyweight^0.75, takes around 240 grams and costs about £0.51 a day. The bag's table suggests 175 to 350 grams across the 10kg to 25kg range, so split the difference by body condition.