Ci Foods Ci Tickety Boo: Chicken, Sweet Potato & Herbs (Tiny Bites) review

Fifteen varieties share one construction and still spread out on results. Four reach our Excellent band and eleven finish in Good, which is also where the typical adult dry food settles. The differences between members come down to small shifts in meat share and analysis, never to a change of philosophy. So it is reasonable to pick by protein first and let the bands settle ties.

Ingredients, as declared: Lamb 50% (including Freshly Prepared Lamb 30%, Dried Lamb 18% & Lamb Stock 2%), Sweet Potato (23%), Peas (9%), Pea Protein, Potato, Linseed, Beet Pulp, Omega 3 Supplement, Minerals, Vitamins, Vegetable Stock, Mint (0.2%), FOS (96 mg/kg), MOS (24 mg/kg)

Each label opens the same way, with the headline animal at half the recipe or more, split into freshly prepared meat and dried meat with a stock. Printing that split matters. Fresh meat loses most of its listed weight in cooking, while the dried share arrives already concentrated. Here the dried portions run high enough to keep the finished kibble genuinely meat-led. Protein converts to between 26.1% and 31.5% of dry matter across the range.

The starch side is led by sweet potato, with potato behind it and peas in support. Cereal appears nowhere in the range. Estimated carbohydrate spans 39.2% to 48.8% of dry matter depending on variety, straddling the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Beet pulp and linseed run through every recipe, the first for fibre and the second for plant omega 3s, topped up by a separate omega 3 supplement. That supplement's source is never named, which is the one soft spot on labels that are otherwise unusually well itemised.

Prebiotic FOS and MOS are dosed in print on every bag, and each flavour carries a small signature extra, from mint with the lamb to cranberry with the turkey, garnish more than nutrition.

The added trace minerals are dosed per kilo on each label, though the exact panel varies a little between varieties, with some flavours listing copper or selenium and others leaving them off. Worth a glance at your chosen bag if you track a particular mineral.

A word of caution on this one. The bag is named Chicken, Sweet Potato & Herbs, but its ingredients panel lists lamb at 50% with mint at 0.2%, matching the small-breed lamb recipe. Until the labelling is reconciled, treat it as a lamb food and read the bag in your hand before serving it to a dog with a lamb issue.

Per kilo, prices run from £3.59 for the chicken up to £5.12 for the Tiny Bites varieties, with most standard flavours falling between £3.67 and £4.37. Every variety is sold in 2kg bags, singly or in packs of four, and the standard and Mighty Bites recipes add a 13.5kg sack; the Tiny Bites stay in the 2kg formats.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, daily feeding works out between £0.82 and £1.17 depending on the variety, assuming roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate).