Darf Complete Dry: Turkey review

The turkey reaches our Excellent band. The beef takes our Good band, and the middle of the cold-pressed field settles there too. Naming every animal part and printing a percentage beside it does most of the earning, and the turkey finishes a touch ahead of the beef. Where the turkey gives ground is on the analysis, with more of the pellet arriving as carbohydrate and less of it as fat.

Ingredients, as declared: 60% meat (18% turkey necks, 18% turkey meat, 6% beef heart, 6% turkey heart, 3% beef fat, 3% beef lung, 3% beef tripe, 3% beef liver), 10% raw dried carrot, 10% raw dried apple, 10% millet, 5% seaweed, 2% krill, 2% salmon oil

Cold pressing is what separates this from a bag of ordinary dry food. The mixture is pressed, not cooked at high heat. The pellet crumbles when it meets moisture and does not swell, which is why the format suits dogs that eat faster than they should. Darf then fills that pellet with a raw-style recipe.

Meat accounts for 60% of both bags and Darf itemises it. The beef recipe gives 70% of its meat block to beef meat and hands the rest to heart, lung, tripe and liver. The turkey splits its share differently, with turkey necks and turkey meat at 18% each of the finished food, turkey heart alongside them, and beef arriving as heart, lung, tripe, liver and fat. Organ meats like these carry a density of micronutrition that muscle meat on its own never matches.

The plant side is where a cold-pressed recipe has to earn its structure, and here it is carrot and apple in their raw dried forms, plus millet. Millet is a gentle grain and a gluten-free one, which is a kinder choice than wheat for a dog with a sensitive gut. It does all add up: carbohydrate converts to 52.0% of dry matter in the beef and 62.5% in the turkey, against 43.2% for a typical cold-pressed food. This is a bag with a proper carbohydrate load behind its meat.

The small entries are chosen, not scattered. Krill at 2% brings marine omega fats to both recipes, coconut oil finishes the beef and salmon oil the turkey, and seaweed at 5% in the turkey is a natural route to iodine. Nettle at 1% closes the beef. None of these are large enough to change the analysis, but they explain where the fat quality comes from.

Calcium converts to 1.28% of dry matter in the beef and 1.24% in the turkey, a sensible level for an adult dog. The supplement behind those minerals is declared as a vitamin and mineral supplement at 0.5%, with the itemised doses left off the label. That part of the recipe you take on the maker's word. The turkey's crude ash figure of 0.66% also sits oddly low next to its own calcium declaration, so the panel there is best read as an indication.

Turkey necks and turkey meat lead at 18% each, with turkey heart and a set of beef organ meats making up the rest of the meat. Seaweed at 5% and salmon oil at 2% appear only here, and millet is doubled to 10%. Fat sits at 9.3% of dry matter and energy at 358 kcal per 100g. This is the leaner and lighter recipe of the two, and a sound pick for a dog watching its waistline.

Both recipes are £5.61 a kilo, sold in 4kg and 14kg bags.

On the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition wants roughly 840 kcal a day. The beef delivers that in about 201 grams, or £1.13 a day, and the lighter turkey in about 235 grams, or £1.32.