CSJ Herbie Rings review

Herbie Rings comes out in our Good band, the same band the typical adult dry food occupies, with transparency Excellent and protein and processing and nutritional balance both Average. The chicken meal minimum and the printed liver percentage pull upwards, since a stated minimum is a promise rather than an estimate. The wheat pair pull the other way. Moisture is left undeclared, so the dry matter figures here rest on the 8% that a dry food usually shows, putting the carbohydrate estimate at 52.1%. What a score cannot show you is how clean the animal side of this recipe is, and for a chicken eating dog that is the reason to look at it at all.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken meal (min 24%), Wheat, Wheat flour, Rice, Chicken fat, Chicken liver (3%), Beet pulp, Minerals, Salmon oil, Mint, Fenugreek, Seaweed, Yuccca schidigera.

Chicken meal at a minimum of 24% leads, and both halves of that declaration matter. Meal is the dried, rendered form. Its water has already gone, so nearly all of the stated amount survives into the finished kibble. A minimum is also a floor, and that is the stronger way for a maker to declare a meat.

Chicken fat and chicken liver at 3% follow, both from the same animal. Few things a dog can be given are as nutrient dense as liver. It is rich in B vitamins, vitamin A and copper, and it is also why a picky dog will clear the bowl. Nothing else on the list is a land animal, so as one meat recipes go, this one holds up to reading.

Wheat and wheat flour are the binders, with rice behind them. Wheat is the grain most often implicated in a dietary intolerance, so weigh that entry against your own dog's history. For a dog with no grain trouble it is a well behaved source of energy. Protein still converts to 26.1% of dry matter, which is respectable for a food of this shape.

The omega source is salmon oil, and without it this would be a chicken only ingredient list. It earns its keep, since marine omega 3s are the form a dog uses directly rather than having to convert, but a strict fish free trial has to look at it honestly.

The named herbs are mint, fenugreek and seaweed, the trio the food takes its name from. Seaweed brings iodine and a spread of trace minerals, fenugreek is a traditional appetite herb and mint is there for the breath. Yucca schidigera at the end is the usual choice for reducing stool odour, and the trace mineral panel doubles up sulphate and chelated forms, the chelated half being the more readily absorbed of the two.

This is £1.78 a kilo, in a 15kg sack.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 249 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), giving £0.44 a day. The label's table asks 135 to 250 grams for a dog between 10kg and 20kg, so let your dog's condition decide where in that range to sit.