Cotswold Raw Puppy: Chicken review

All three recipes carry our Outstanding band word, and they earn it in the toughest company we score, because the typical raw puppy food carries that band word too. These do not simply clear the line. They sit a good distance above the middle of that field, with protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency all reading Outstanding on every recipe, and value doing the same. The beef and the chicken finish level with each other and the beef and tripe is a hair behind them, so the ranking should not be what picks your bag.

Ingredients, as declared: Organic & free range British chicken with bone (65%), beef heart (5%), beef liver (5%), beef kidney (5%), seasonal vegetables (carrots (5%), cauliflower (5%), cabbage (5%), broccoli (5%), free range eggs (0.5%) milled flaxseed (0.5%), wheatgerm (0.25%), turmeric (0.24%), kelp (0.15%), diatomaceous earth (0.12%), milk thistle (0.05%), dandelion (0.05%), nettle leaf (0.05%), alfalfa (0.025%), spirulina (0.02%), thyme (0.02%).

The construction barely moves between recipes. Beef and Beef & Tripe both open with 80% British beef, itemised inside the bracket so you can see exactly which parts are doing the work. The Chicken recipe leads on chicken that is British, organic and free range, on the bone at 65%, with its organ share borrowed from beef. Bone is ground into the mince in every case, and that is where a raw recipe is meant to get its calcium.

The offal set is a proper one. The beef recipes carry heart at 10%, plus liver and kidney at 5% each, and the same organs sit behind the chicken at 5% apiece. A great deal of an animal's vitamin and trace mineral content sits in the liver, so an ingredients list that names it and measures it is doing something useful.

Seasonal vegetables take a fixed share, with carrots, cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli each at 5%. Carrot brings carotene and soluble fibre, and the brassicas add bulk and micronutrients without adding starch. That is why carbohydrate estimates out at 0.6% in the Beef, 1.0% in the Chicken and 1.1% in the Beef & Tripe.

Cotswold does its supplementing at the tail of the label, and it is all whole food. Milled flaxseed at 0.5% carries omega fats and fibre, wheatgerm at 0.25% brings vitamin E, kelp at 0.15% is the iodine source, and turmeric sits at 0.24%. Diatomaceous earth at 0.12% is a fossilised algae powder, mildly abrasive and used in dog food for gut housekeeping. Milk thistle, dandelion and nettle leaf follow at 0.05% each. Alfalfa, spirulina and thyme sit at trace level below them, and all of it reads as seasoning.

There is no separate additives panel because there is no premix to declare. Cotswold's stated position is that everything in the recipe is printed on the label. The organ meats, the kelp and the wheatgerm are what make that a credible way to build a puppy recipe. It does mean the micronutrition arrives as ingredients, so there is no panel of printed doses to read down.

The only recipe led by a bird. British chicken on the bone takes 65% of it, organic and free range, with the beef organ trio, heart, liver and kidney, at 5% each supplying the organ share. Bone-in poultry pushes the mineral content up, ash reading 9.6% of dry matter against 7.2% in the Beef, and it sits at 190 kcal per 100g.

Each recipe comes in 500g and 1kg packs. Per kilo, the Chicken is £5.95, the Beef & Tripe £6.95 and the Beef £7.45.

Cotswold gives feeding by age band rather than a single daily figure, which suits a growing dog. A puppy heading for an adult weight of 5kg is fed 400g to 500g a day at two to four months, dropping through the bands to 100g to 150g once past a year. A puppy heading for 40kg starts at 3200g to 4000g a day and settles at 800g to 1200g.