Fleischeslust Classic Sausage: Wild Rabbit review

All six recipes finish in our Excellent band or above, five of them Outstanding, and they land close enough together that rotating between them changes the animal and very little else. Wet scores well with us, so the typical adult wet food carries an Excellent band of its own. This range sits above that mark on what the labels declare: 75% animal content every time, the cuts named inside the bracket, and a plant list short enough to read at a glance. Protein and processing reads Excellent across all six.

Ingredients, as declared: 38 % rabbit (meat, offal), 37 % beef (lungs, heart, liver, kidneys), 8.8 % broth, 6.7 % pea, 3.3 % pear, potato starch, minerals, 1.7 % beet, eggshell meal, brewer's yeast, 0.1 % nettle, yucca root, 0.1 % rapeseed oil.

All six labels open on 75% of one or two named animals, with the cuts printed inside the bracket. Beef Menu lists meat, lungs, heart, liver, rumen and kidneys. Fine Poultry lists meat, stomachs, hearts, liver and skin. That much detail is rare on a wet label, and it is this range's strongest card.

Offal features heavily, and it is there by choice rather than as a shortcut. For nutrient density, liver has few equals among the things a maker can reach for. Tripe and heart bring their own vitamins and minerals with them. A dog raised on plain muscle meat may want a few days to get used to it, and the analysis is the reward: protein runs from 32.0% to 52.9% of dry matter across the range.

Broth is declared with a percentage on all six, between 8.8% and 10.3%, and never left to pass as plain water. Behind it the plant side stays modest, with carrot, parsnip, blueberry, pea and pumpkin taking turns, and potato starch acting as the binder. Potato starch is pure starch, but at these levels it holds a recipe together instead of bulking it out, and the carbohydrate estimate stays between 16.9% and 20.9% of dry matter.

The finishing touches are small and sensible. Eggshell meal and a mineral premix put calcium between 0.82% and 1.04% of dry matter, comfortable for adult feeding, brewer's yeast brings natural B vitamins, and yucca root turns up on every list. The added oil is always named, linseed on some recipes and rapeseed on others. A lot of wet labels do not go that far.

Rabbit meat and offal at 38% with beef at 37% behind it, plus pea at 6.7%, pear at 3.3% and beet at 1.7%. At 113 kcal per 100g it is one of the gentler recipes on energy, and fibre reads 5.8% of dry matter, second only to the Tender Beef.

Pack sizes are 400 g and 800 g, plus a 200 g on Fine Poultry and Tender Beef. Trays hold 16 x 400 g, 12 x 800 g or 15 x 200 g. Game with Beef is £9.36 a kilo.

As a guide, feeding Game with Beef to a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at about £6.35 a day, or roughly 679 grams. The 840 kcal a day behind that is the standard maintenance estimate, 110 × bodyweight^0.75. On the same basis the other recipes range from 415 grams a day on Fresh Salmon, the densest of the six, up to 750 grams on Fine Poultry.