Dr John Hypoallergenic: Duck and Salmon review

All three recipes read in our Good band, level with the typical adult dry food, though they are not built alike. The gap is about quantity of meat, not quality. The duck and salmon declares 14% of each meal against 26% for the chicken and the lamb, and grain rises to fill the space. Transparency reads Good or better on all three, and protein and processing sits at Good on the chicken and the lamb. That is fair for a range that names most of what it uses and keeps its lists short enough to check.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck meal (14%) & salmon meal (14%), whole grain maize, whole grain rice (20%), whole grain barley (18%), sunflower oil, peas (4%), beet pulp, salmon oil (0.625%), minerals, yucca extract.

Each recipe is built on a dried meat meal rather than fresh meat, and on a label like this that counts in their favour. The water is gone from a meal before it is weighed, so the printed percentage is near enough the protein your dog gets. A fresh meat percentage shrinks considerably once the oven has finished with it. Protein converts to between 23.1% and 26.1% of dry matter across the three.

Grain does the carrying in every recipe, from barley and maize in the chicken to whole grain maize, rice and barley in the duck and salmon. Wheat appears nowhere. For a dog with a cereal sensitivity that is the most useful fact about the range, because no grain causes more food intolerance than wheat. Barley and oats are gentler on digestion and bring fibre along with them, and rice is the plainest starch of the lot.

Carbohydrate estimates run from 52.7% to 55.5% of dry matter, all of them above the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. That is the trade the range makes: a short, readable list at a moderate meat share, with grain filling the rest of the bowl.

The extras are few and each has a job. Yucca extract runs through all three and is chosen for its effect on stool odour. Beet pulp in the lamb and in the duck and salmon is a moderate fermentable fibre that steadies the gut. The lamb also adds taurine at 500 mg/kg, the amino acid heart muscle depends on, and a sensible inclusion on any recipe of this build.

Ash is where the three differ most, from 6.6% of dry matter in the chicken up to 9.9% in the lamb, which reflects how much bone travels with a meat meal. It is a normal consequence of the format, not a fault in the recipe.

Duck meal and salmon meal at 14% each, with whole grain maize, 20% whole grain rice and 18% whole grain barley behind them, and sunflower oil in place of chicken fat. It is the only recipe of the three with no chicken anywhere on the list. Reach for this one when chicken is what you are avoiding. The trade is that its combined meat share is the smallest in the range, and salmon meal plus salmon oil at 0.625% keep it firmly off the table for a fish avoiding dog. Moisture is not declared here, so its dry matter figures are worked from an assumed 8%.

Per kilo, Chicken With Oats is £1.84, Lamb With Rice £1.92 and Duck and Salmon £2.72. All three come in a 12.5kg sack, with a 4kg option on the chicken and a 2kg on the other two.

As a guide, take a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition on around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is about 247 grams a day of the chicken, 254 of the lamb or 245 of the duck and salmon. In the same order that comes to £0.46, £0.49 and £0.67 a day. The bags themselves ask 200 to 370 grams for a dog of 10kg to 20kg, so let condition settle the amount.