Concept For Life Labrador Retriever Adult review

The reading this food earns puts it in our Average band, under the Good band that most adult dry foods occupy, and the gap is mostly down to protein and processing, which comes out Average. Two of the working entries, the poultry protein and the poultry fat, name a family of birds instead of a species, and lignocellulose does some of the fibre work. What the same label gets right barely moves the arithmetic but matters a great deal at the bowl. Carbohydrate lands at 46.2% of dry matter, level with a typical adult dry food, protein is the strongest in this brand's large breed range, and nutritional balance reads Good with transparency Average.

Ingredients, as declared: 25% Poultry Protein (Rich in Chicken, Partly Dried and Hydrolysed), 20% Fresh Chicken Meat, Rice, Maize, Dried Beet Pulp (Desugared), Rice Flour, Linseed, Poultry Fat, Lignocellulose, Sodium Chloride, Brewer's Yeast (Dried), Egg (Dried), Monocalcium Phosphate, 0.1% Salmon Oil, 0.1% Borage Oil, Psyllium Husks (Dried), 0.1% Sunflower Oil, 0.1% Chicory Inulin, 0.1% Aronia Extract (Dried, Rich in Polyphenols), 0.04% Glucosamine, 0.02% Chondroitin Sulphate, 0.01% Marigold Flower Meal (Rich in Lutein), 0.01% Green Tea Extract (Dried, Rich in Flavonoids), Antioxidants.

Poultry protein at 25% heads the list. It is partly dried and hydrolysed, and the label describes it as rich in chicken. Hydrolysis has cut the protein into smaller fragments. That makes it easy on the digestion and a common choice in recipes for touchy stomachs. The word poultry still covers any domestic bird. Fresh chicken meat at 20% sits behind it and is the entry that names the animal outright.

Protein is declared at 28%, converting to 30.4% of dry matter, and fat at 12.0%, with energy at 367 kcal per 100g. Moisture is missing from the label, so the dry matter conversions assume 8%.

The plant side is rice, maize and rice flour. The estimated carbohydrate figure of 46.2% of dry matter lands squarely on the middle for an adult dry food, which the order of the ingredient list would not lead you to expect.

Fibre arrives from three directions: dried beet pulp, psyllium husks for the soluble kind and lignocellulose. The last of those is plant fibre purified into a powder. Chicory inulin at 0.1% is the prebiotic entry.

The small print is where this recipe does its most interesting work. Aronia extract at 0.1% brings polyphenols, and borage oil at 0.1% supplies gamma linolenic acid for the skin. Linseed adds plant omega 3s and salmon oil the marine ones, with marigold flower meal at 0.01% carrying lutein for the eyes. L-carnitine at 100mg/kg helps the body shuttle fat towards being burned, which is a sensible thing to dose in a labrador recipe.

Every trace mineral carries a printed dose, and zinc is supplied twice over, 100mg/kg from the sulphate and 60mg/kg from a glycine chelate that is generally absorbed more readily. Dried egg and brewer's yeast sit behind the meat as smaller contributors of good quality protein.

Sold in 1.5kg, 6kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 229 grams a day, worked from maintenance of roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). A grown labrador is well past 15kg, so treat that as a floor and let condition decide the rest.