Eukanuba Special Care Mono-Protein Duck Adult All Breed review

This one finishes in our Good band. That puts it level with the adult dry category's middle, and out in front of it on the label. The gap is earned by discipline, not by flourish. One named animal runs the whole recipe, the mineral panel is named and dosed in full, and nothing on the list is hiding behind a category word such as meat or oils. The moisture figure is assumed at the standard 8% rather than declared, so the dry matter conversions carry that basis with them.

Ingredients, as declared: freshly frozen duck (19%), duck meal (19%), potato, whole peas, sweet potato (12%), pea starch, duck fat (5%),dried beet pulp (3%), duck gravy (2%), linseed, minerals, fructooligosaccharides (0.25%, a natural prebiotic), mannanoligosaccharides (0.15%, a natural prebiotic).

Freshly frozen duck at 19% heads the list. Fresh meat is largely water, and the oven drives it off. That leaves the 19% duck meal immediately behind it doing much of the finished kibble's protein work. Printing the two separately is the genuinely useful part. Protein converts to 26.1% of dry matter and fat to 13.0%, a steady pairing for an everyday adult kibble.

Potato, whole peas, sweet potato at 12% and pea starch make up the plant side, with no grain at any point. Whole peas are the better form of the ingredient, bringing fibre and a little plant protein rather than arriving as refined pea flour. Carbohydrate does end up estimated at 50.2% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. The starch is carrying a fair share.

The single-protein promise holds right to the bottom of the list, which is rarer than the phrase suggests. The added fat is duck fat at 5% and the palatant is duck gravy at 2%. There is no unnamed animal fat, no hydrolysate and no spoonful of fish oil slipped in for the omega 3s. Linseed does that job instead, supplying omega 3 in its plant form. For an owner trying to rule one animal in or out, a list this clean is exactly what is needed.

The fibre is dried beet pulp at 3%. Both prebiotics come with their doses printed, fructooligosaccharides at 0.25% and mannanoligosaccharides at 0.15%. They feed the gut's own bacteria further along, and not the dog directly.

The added trace minerals are amino acid chelates. A dog's gut generally takes that form up most readily. Every one is dosed on the label: zinc at 62.5 mg, iron at 50 mg, manganese at 10 mg, copper at 5 mg and iodine at 1.5 mg per kilo. Taurine at 500 mg and L-carnitine at 50 mg are declared alongside them, with rosemary extract and tocopherols keeping the duck fat from turning.

Two bag sizes are listed, the larger of them 12kg.

As a portion guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at about 242 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Eukanuba's own table asks 250 to 285 grams for a 20kg dog. If the two differ, the waistline settles it.