Eden Gourmet Range: Goose and Turkey review

All three settle in our Good band, close enough together that the order tells you little. What you are picking here is an animal. That is level with the middle of the adult dry category, which our bands also read as Good. What separates them is how the 60% is made up. Goose and Turkey stacks fresh goose, fresh and dried turkey and dried rabbit, and protein and processing reads Good right across the range. The other two rest a larger share of that 60% on one big fresh entry, and the oven takes most of its water out.

Ingredients, as declared: 60% Goose, Rabbit & Turkey: Freshly Prepared Goose HDP* (26%), Freshly Prepared Turkey (11.5%), Dried Turkey (11 %), Turkey Fat (5.5%), Dried Rabbit (4%), Turkey Gravy (2%) *Highly Digestible Protein 40% Vegetables, Botanicals and Other Functional Ingredients: Dried Sweet Potato (18.5%), Chickpea Flour, Pea Fibre, Potato Protein, Tapioca (3%), Minerals, Dried Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Fructo-oligosaccharides (Prebiotic FOS; 0.1 %/1250 mg/kg), Turmeric, Brewers Yeast Extract (as a source of Mannanoligosaccharides (Prebiotic MOS 0.01 %/315 mg/kg), Green Lipped Mussel (0.1%)

The label divides itself in two, 60% animal against 40% plant and functional material, and marks its lead meats HDP, the maker's own shorthand for highly digestible protein. Freshly prepared meat is weighed wet, so the 43% fresh duck in Duck and Herring is a smaller share of the finished kibble than the number implies. The dried meat behind it does more of the work than its own percentage suggests. Printing both is what lets a careful reader see that.

Across the three recipes protein lands between 28.8% and 29.9% of dry matter, with carbohydrate between 37.0% and 39.1%, comfortably under the 46.2% that is typical for adult dry food. Fat runs high for a dry food at 18.5% to 19.0% of dry matter, and that is much of why these bowls satisfy a dog quickly.

Chickpea flour and potato protein turn up in all three, and they change how you read the protein figure. Both are plant proteins, and a dog digests them less completely than the animal kind. Part of that declared protein is therefore doing lighter work than the meat share suggests. They are ordinary company in a grain free recipe and nothing to fret over, and they simply sit behind the headline.

Two prebiotics are printed with doses, which is rare enough to note: FOS from dried chicory root extract at 1150 mg/kg in Duck and Herring, and MOS from brewers' yeast extract at 315 mg/kg. FOS is food for the bacteria that already live in the large intestine, while MOS comes from the yeast cell wall and works in the same territory from a different angle. Between them they are the gut support on this label, and both are stated outright.

Green lipped mussel at 0.1% and turmeric at 0.1% are the joint and antioxidant touches. Both are genuine ingredients with a real reputation behind them, but at a tenth of a percent they are a seasoning of support and not a therapeutic dose. Take them as a welcome extra on top of a good recipe.

Taurine is dosed at 962 mg/kg on all three labels. The trace minerals arrive as chelates, a form most dogs take up more readily than the plain mineral salts. Duck and Herring and Goose and Turkey list their selenium as selenised yeast, the better absorbed of the two forms allowed in pet food.

The busiest label of the three, with fresh goose at 26%, fresh turkey at 11.5%, dried turkey at 11%, turkey fat at 5.5% and dried rabbit at 4%. That spread of dried meat is why it carries the highest protein in the range at 27.5% and the lowest carbohydrate at 34.0%. Worth knowing that the flavour name mentions two birds while the ingredients block declares rabbit as well.

£12.50 a kilo, the same across the three flavours, sold in 2kg and 10kg bags with a 100g sample.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 226 grams a day of any of them, which comes to £2.82. That assumes around 840 kcal a day, the standard maintenance figure of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. Eden's own table puts the same dog at 191 grams. Start between the two figures, then let your dog's condition decide.