Flourish Hypoallergenic: Chicken & Rice review

Both recipes read Good, precisely where the middle of the adult dry category reads. This pair sits with the average of the shelf, neither above nor below it. The meat share is the reason. Chicken is declared at 29% and lamb at 28%, both arriving mostly pre-dried, which is the useful form, but the grain trio underneath takes up most of the rest of the bowl.

That is the deal a limited ingredient recipe makes, and it is a deliberate one. Short lists mean fewer things to react to and a better chance of working out what upset your dog in the first place. The added minerals carry figures on both labels, yucca extract is printed at 190 mg/kg in each, and neither recipe hides its headline meat behind a category term.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 29% (including Dried Chicken 26% & Chicken Fat 3%), Rice (26%), Barley, Oats, Beet Pulp (2%), Dried Fish, Brewers Yeast, Minerals, Vitamins, Yucca Extract (190 mg/kg)

The chicken recipe declares 29% chicken as 26% dried chicken and 3% chicken fat, and the lamb declares 28% as 26% dried lamb and 2% lamb gravy. Dried meat is the concentrated form. A 26% dried entry survives into the finished kibble far better than a fresh 26% would. The chicken lands at 26.1% protein of dry matter and the lamb at 23.9%, gentle adult figures either way.

Rice at 26% heads the plant side of both, with barley and oats behind it. Cooked rice is one of the easiest things a dog can be asked to digest, and it is the usual grain of choice when the whole point of a recipe is to be uneventful. Barley adds fibre along with selenium and copper, oats bring fibre and B vitamins, and beet pulp at 2% completes the fibre in each.

The two labels are not quite as clean as the front of the bag implies, and it is worth being straight about that. The chicken recipe carries dried fish with no species given, so chicken and fish are in the bowl together. The lamb recipe carries chicken fat, which means it is not a chicken free food even though chicken is nowhere in the headline. On a strict single protein trial, both of those matter. For general sensitivity feeding, where the aim is a short and predictable list, both recipes still do the job they are sold for.

Brewer's yeast appears on both lists. Few natural sources of the B vitamins beat it, and it is a useful little protein contributor in its own right. Yucca extract is dosed at 190 mg/kg in each, an old hand at making what the dog leaves on the lawn less pungent.

Ash runs to 9.8% of dry matter in the lamb against 6.0% in the chicken, and calcium follows the same pattern, at 2.5% of dry matter in the lamb and 1.63% in the chicken. Both labels are written for adults, so those calcium figures are read against adult needs.

Chicken at 29%, made up of 26% dried chicken and 3% chicken fat, with dried fish appearing further down as a second animal source. Of the two it is the leaner and the higher in protein, with fat at 8% and protein at 26.1% on a dry matter basis. Its mineral load is the lighter one as well, with ash at 6.0% and calcium at 1.63% of dry matter.

£3.25 a kilo for the chicken and £3.33 a kilo for the lamb, both sold in a 12kg bag.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition gets through about 241 grams of the chicken a day, or 243 grams of the lamb, which comes to £0.78 and £0.81 a day. Both rest on an assumed intake of around 840 kcal a day, the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75.