Collards Adult Small Breed Chicken and Rice review

Our scoring puts this in the Good band, level with the typical adult dry food, although it arrives there by an unusual route. Carbohydrate at 40.6% of dry matter comes in below the 46.2% typical, protein reaches 29.7% of dry matter, and the transparency pillar reads Outstanding because nearly every ingredient carries its own declared percentage. What keeps the total steady is the meal and rice construction rather than anything the analysis gives away, and for a small dog with a fast engine this is a generous bowl.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 39% (Chicken Meat Meal 27%, Chicken Fat 10%, Chicken Gravy 2%), Brown Rice 15%, White Rice 15%, Whole Barley 12%, Sugar Beet Pulp 5%, Whole Linseed 5%, Potato Protein 5%, Dried Alfalfa 1%, Natural Seaweed Meal 0.5%, Fructo-Oligosaccharide (from chicory root extract 0.25%), Sodium chloride, Potassium chloride, Methionine, Yucca extract 0.01%, Molluscs and Crustaceans as source of glucosamine, Chondroitin, Marigold extract 0.005%, Rosemary extract 0.005%.

Chicken at 39% is opened up into chicken meat meal at 27%, chicken fat at 10% and chicken gravy at 2%, with the bird named on all three, which is more than most labels manage. Meal is dried before it enters the mix, so that 27% carries through the oven close to as printed. Protein converts to 29.7% of dry matter, a strong figure for a biscuit built this way.

The richness comes from chicken fat, and 10% of it is a lot to find in a biscuit. Fat converts to 18.7% of dry matter and energy to 368 kcal per 100g against the 357 typical for adult dry food, so a small dog needs a genuinely small measure. Named animal fat is the better kind to meet on a label, since it tells you which bird the omega 6 came from.

The grain side is brown rice at 15%, white rice at another 15% and whole barley at 12%. Rice is kind to most small digestions, and using both forms spreads the release of the starch across the meal. Carbohydrate finishes at 40.6% of dry matter, under what a typical adult dry food carries, simply because the meat and the fat have taken up more of the room.

Sugar beet pulp at 5% and whole linseed at 5% sit behind the grains, one bringing fibre and the other plant omega 3. A dog converts that plant omega 3 to the active forms more slowly than it takes them from fish. Potato protein at 5% props up the analysis. For a dog, a plant protein is not as complete as the chicken above it, and at that level the chicken is plainly still leading.

Glucosamine and chondroitin arrive through molluscs and crustaceans, the usual shell route, with no dose printed beside them. Dried alfalfa at 1%, seaweed meal at 0.5%, yucca extract at 0.01% and the marigold and rosemary extracts at 0.005% are the small print. Printing those percentages is the label being straight about how little of each is in there.

Sold in a 2kg resealable bag and in a 10kg bag.

The audience here is a small dog, so the label's own table is the better guide: 95 grams a day for a 5kg dog and 155 grams for a 10kg one. For scale against other adult foods, a 15kg dog in moderate condition would take about 228 grams a day. That assumes around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), worked from an estimated energy figure and not a declared one.