Dr Clauders Grain Free Wildlife: Duck review

Our Good band holds all three of these, the same band the typical adult dry food occupies. The construction is what earns it. A named species does 45% of the recipe in two forms, the plant side stops at potato and peas instead of sprawling, and enough percentages are declared to read the label properly. There is barely anything between the three of them, so the animal is what should decide it.

Ingredients, as declared: Potato flour, duck meat 25%, duck protein (dried) 20%, beet pulp, apple (dried), peas (dried), linseed, vegetarian protein hydrolysate, dicalcium phosphate, chicken fat, cranberry (dried), blueberries (dried), yeast beta glucans, yucca shidigera powder, nettle (dried), blackberry leaf (dried), yarrow (dried), fennel (dried), cumin (dried), chamomile blossoms (dried), mistletoe (dried), gentian root (dried), centaury (dried).

Every recipe here names its animal twice, once as meat and once as a dried protein of the same species, and the two together account for 45% of the label. The dried half carries most of the protein into the finished kibble, since fresh meat leaves the greater part of its weight behind in the oven.

Potato does the binding throughout, as flour in the duck and as starch in the lamb and the salmon, with peas behind it. Potato starch is exactly what it sounds like, a pure binder with little else to offer, so the nutrition has to come from the meat and not from the base. That is the right way round for a dog.

All three declare their protein hydrolysate as vegetarian, which is a genuinely useful piece of labelling. An animal hydrolysate that names no species is the entry that quietly undoes a single-species promise, and there is none of that here.

The herb run that closes each list, nettle, blackberry leaf, yarrow, fennel, cumin, chamomile blossoms, mistletoe, gentian root and centaury, is traditional European seasoning sitting at trace level. It gives the range its character. The heavy lifting is left to the meat.

Ash runs between 8.5% and 9.2% of dry matter across the three recipes, with calcium from 1.63% to 2.17%. That mineral load is normal for recipes leaning on dried meat, and all three labels are written for adults, which is where those figures belong.

Duck meat at 25% with dried duck protein at 20%, on a base of potato flour, and the fullest fruit and vegetable side of the three: dried apple, peas, cranberry and blueberries all appear. Chicken fat supplies the added fat, so this is a duck recipe with a chicken entry in it, and a chicken-avoiding dog needs one of the other two. Protein converts to 26.1% of dry matter and fat to 13.6%, the leaner shape in the range.

Per kilo, the duck and the salmon are £6.77 and the lamb is £7.14, each sold in 2 kg and 11.5 kg bags.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition comes to between £1.65 and £1.68 a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The calorie figures behind those numbers are estimated from each analysis, since none of the three labels prints one.