Dachshund Superfood Light Adult Private label: Turkey review

The two finish a band apart. The turkey takes our Excellent band, the trout and salmon sit in Good with the middle of the adult dry shelf, and they arrive there by different routes. The turkey earns it on meat, declaring 65% of the recipe as turkey and pork. The trout and salmon earns it on restraint, with fat held to 8% behind a smaller meat share, which is the shape a light diet is meant to take. Its nutritional balance reads Average as a result, and that is the diet doing its job rather than a fault in it.

Ingredients, as declared: 65% Turkey & Pork (35% Freshly Prepared Free Range Turkey, 14% Dried Pork, 11.5% Dried Turkey, 2.5% Turkey Gravy, 2% Turkey Fat), Sweet Potato, Beans, Beet Pulp, Dried Superfood Blend* (including Parsley, Papaya, Nettle, Courgette, Pumpkin), Minerals, Omega 3 Supplement, Joint Pack (Glucosamine 180 mg/kg, Methylsulfonylmethane 180 mg/kg, Chondroitin Sulphate 125 mg/kg), Fructooligosaccharides (FOS, 175 mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (MOS, 50 mg/kg), Olive Extract (0.01%), *Each equivalent to 4% Fresh Ingredients

Both labels split their meat figure into its parts. That is the honest way to write it. Fresh meat carries its water into the mix and gives it up in the oven. On both recipes the dried entries therefore do more of the work in the finished kibble than their place on the list suggests.

On the plant side each recipe opens with sweet potato, and beet pulp follows for fibre. No wheat, maize or rice appears on either list.

Both bags print the joint set as a dose, glucosamine, MSM and chondroitin sulphate together. Both also carry FOS and MOS, prebiotic sugars whose job is to feed the bacteria of the large intestine. The doses differ between the two recipes and are set out in the variety notes below.

Neither label breaks its vitamins and trace minerals out, folding them instead into one minerals entry, so there is no reading the zinc or the copper off the pack. Everything else on both lists comes with a percentage or a position you can follow, which is more than many small-breed bags manage.

Turkey and pork together are declared at 65%. That is 35% freshly prepared free range turkey, 11.5% dried turkey, 2.5% turkey gravy and 2% turkey fat, with 14% dried pork alongside. This is the meatier of the two and the only one carrying a second animal. Protein reaches 37.5% with fat at 11% and carbohydrate converting to 32.6% of dry matter, so light here means lean. The label adds seniors to the adult recommendation and brings a dried blend of parsley, papaya, nettle, courgette and pumpkin. The joint pack lifts slightly to 180 mg/kg each of glucosamine and MSM, with chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg/kg. Calcium works out at 1.74% of dry matter, an adult level.

£6.25 a kilo for both recipes, each sold in 2kg, 6kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, feeding comes to £1.50 a day on the turkey and £1.54 a day on the trout and salmon. That takes a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Both labels guide by bodyweight from 25 grams upwards for the smallest dogs, so let the waistline settle the final portion.