Feedwell Muesli review

This one comes out in our Poor band, some way below the Good band where the typical adult dry food settles. Nearly the whole gap is down to what the label declines to spell out. Four broad categories carry the whole recipe, no species is named anywhere, and with ash and moisture absent there is no way to put the analysis onto a dry matter footing. Energy has to be estimated too. It comes out around 314 kcal per 100 grams, against 357 for the typical adult dry food. That makes it a genuinely light kibble. Fed to an adult dog with ordinary needs, it does the job it was made for. Protein and processing reads Poor and so does transparency, for the same reason the band does: naming, not nutrition.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals and Cereal derivatives, Meat and Meat derivatives, Oils, Fats and Minerals.

The whole recipe is four entries long: cereals and cereal derivatives, meat and meat derivatives, oils and fats, and minerals. Umbrella terms like these are not proof of poor ingredients, and plenty of long standing British mills have used them for recipes that fed working dogs for decades. What they take away is knowledge. You cannot tell which grain, which animal or which fat you are buying, and the mill stays free to move between sources as supply changes.

Meat and meat derivatives is the entry owners ask about most. Derivatives covers the parts of the carcass we do not eat ourselves, offal above all. Offal is nutritious in its own right. The catch is the one above: with no species attached, a dog known to react to one animal cannot reliably be kept clear of it here.

The analysis reads light all the way through. Protein at 18%, fat at 6% and fibre at 3.5% describe a gentle, low fat food. The pack's own guide reflects that, asking 250 to 350 grams a day for a dog between 12kg and 25kg. That is a generous looking bowl, which owners of steady, food focused dogs often actively want.

Doses are attached to the added vitamins and minerals, and plenty of labels manage no such thing. Vitamin A is declared in full, vitamin D at 1,500 IU per kilo and vitamin E at 80 mg. Iron is at 333 mg, manganese at 80.64 mg, copper at 16 mg, zinc at 14 mg and sodium selenite at 2.2 mg. Two small notes on form. The zinc goes in as zinc oxide, and a dog takes that up less readily than the chelated forms other labels use. Of the two selenium sources permitted in the EU, sodium selenite is the commoner one. Both are entirely standard and both are working at everyday inclusion levels.

£1.33 a kilo, sold in a single 15kg bag.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works through roughly 268 grams a day on the standard maintenance estimate of about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75), which puts feeding at around £0.36 a day. For a dog of that weight the pack's own table asks 250 to 350 grams. The waistline is the better guide when they differ.