Forthglade Gourmet Complete Meal Adult: Duck & Venison review

Both trays finish in our Outstanding band, with very little between them. The everyday adult wet tray already reaches our Excellent band, because wet scores strongly with us. Clearing that mark takes a label built like this one: three quarters named animal, a percentage against every plant entry, and an added vitamin and mineral panel that prints its doses. The Beef and Wild Boar reads Outstanding for nutritional balance and transparency, with protein and processing Excellent, and the Duck and Venison sits a shade behind it. Pick by the animals that suit your dog.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck (48%)*, Venison (27%)*, Green Beans (4%)*, Apricots (4%)*, Minerals, Linseed Oil (0.5%)*, Dried Seaweed (0.45%)*, Herbs (Camomile, Parsley, Rosemary, Nettle) (0.12%)*, Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Prebiotic Fructo-oligosaccharide (0.05%)*, Glucosamine (50mg/kg), Chondroitin (50mg/kg), Yucca Extract (0.005%)*. *natural ingredient

The animal content is the point of these trays and it is declared twice over, once on the front and once with a percentage in the list. Beef at 48% and wild boar at 27% in one, duck at 48% and venison at 27% in the other, both adding up to 75% of the tray. Protein converts to 39.3% of dry matter on the beef recipe and 35.7% on the duck, with fat at 25.0% and 26.8%. For something fed from a tray that is a properly meat-led analysis.

The plant side is small and specific. Apple at 4% with parsnip and carrots at 2% each on the beef tray, green beans and apricots at 4% each on the duck. Carbohydrate still converts to an estimated 17.9% and 16.1% of dry matter, a touch above the 15.8% typical for adult wet food. Worth knowing that this figure is worked out by subtraction rather than measured in a laboratory, so it quietly absorbs anything the printed analysis leaves unaccounted for.

Behind the vegetables comes the tail Forthglade uses across its ranges. Linseed oil at 0.5% brings plant omega-3, and dried seaweed at 0.45% carries iodine with a spread of trace minerals. Chicory root extract at 0.05% is the prebiotic, and it feeds the bacteria doing useful work further down the gut. Yucca extract closes both lists at 0.005%, a trace addition usually included with stool odour in mind.

Glucosamine and chondroitin appear on both labels at 50mg/kg each. Read that as friendly support. A dog with a joint diagnosis should keep whatever their vet has arranged and take this as the dinner underneath it.

The added panel is identical across the two trays and every entry carries a figure. Vitamin A at 2,500IU, vitamin D3 at 200IU and vitamin E at 30mg per kilo come first, then zinc at 50mg, iron at 10mg, copper at 5mg and iodine at 0.5mg. The trace elements come as chelates, the more absorbable way of supplying them.

Duck at 48% with venison at 27%, with green beans and apricots at 4% each standing in for the apple and root veg. It runs slightly richer on fat at 26.8% of dry matter and slightly lower on protein at 35.7%, and our estimate puts energy at 114 kcal per 100g.

The trays come in packs of 7, 14 and 21.

As a portion guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat between 727 and 734 grams a day depending on the tray. That rests on the standard maintenance estimate for a dog that size, about 840 kcal a day at 110 × bodyweight^0.75.

Forthglade's own guide for a dog between 10 and 25kg is 395 grams a day, which sits well under the energy sum, so let your dog's condition settle where the right amount lies.