Forthglade Lightly Baked: Chicken review

The chicken reads Excellent. Lamb and turkey both read Good, matching the middle of the adult dry category. There is little between the three, so the animal should choose your bag, not our reading.

What earns it is consistency across all three. Half of every recipe is a named meat with the dried and fresh shares printed. Protein converts to between 32.6% and 35.9% of dry matter, and carbohydrate to between 37.6% and 40.1%, comfortably under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. Every fat and every gravy is named. The one thing the labels hold back is figures: no calcium is declared and no energy is declared, so the calorie numbers here are our own estimate worked from the analysis.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (50%)* (Dried Chicken 25%*, Fresh Chicken 25%*), Dried Sweet Potato (26%)*, Dried Peas*, Dried Beet Pulp*, Chicken Gravy, Dried Alfalfa*, Minerals, Chicory Root Extract (0.5%)*, Dried Brewer's Yeast*, Chicken Fat*, Dried Botanicals (Dandelion Leaf, Marigold)*, Yucca Extract (0.02%)*. *Natural Ingredient

Each recipe declares 50% of the bag as its animal, and the useful part is the split. The chicken and the turkey run 25% dried with 25% fresh, and the lamb runs 30% dried with 20% fresh. The dried half is what comes through the baking intact, since its water has already gone. Every recipe here puts at least half of its meat in that form.

Lightly baked is more than a phrase on the front. Baking at lower temperatures than standard extrusion is gentler on the proteins and fats in a recipe, and it tends to give a crumblier, less glassy kibble that many dogs find easier to chew. It is a slower way to make dry food, and the difference shows in the texture.

The single animal discipline is the thing to notice. The chicken recipe uses chicken gravy and chicken fat, the turkey uses turkey fat, and the lamb uses a vegetarian gravy with canola oil. At no point does a second species slip in through the fat or the flavouring. There is no fish oil anywhere in the range either, which is unusual on a dry shelf and genuinely useful when fish has to stay out of a dog's bowl.

Dried sweet potato at 25% or 26% leads the plant side, with dried peas behind it and dried beet pulp for fibre. None of the three lists carries a grain of any kind.

The tail is short and sensible. Chicory root extract at 0.5% is a real prebiotic dose, and dried alfalfa adds fibre and minerals. Dried brewer's yeast is among the best natural sources of the B vitamins. Dandelion leaf, marigold and yucca extract at 0.02% are traditional finishing touches at trace level. The added minerals are dosed line by line, with zinc at 62.5 mg, iron at 50 mg, manganese and copper at 10 mg each, iodine at 1.5 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg per kilo.

Chicken at 50%, half dried and half fresh, with chicken gravy and chicken fat supplying the flavour and the added fat so the whole recipe stays on one bird. At 35.9% of dry matter the chicken has more protein than its two siblings, and much the lightest mineral load, with ash at 8.2% where the other two sit above 10%. Dried sweet potato is declared at 26%, a shade more than in the lamb or the turkey.

£5.39 a kilo across all three recipes, sold in 2kg, 6kg, 12kg and 18kg bags.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats somewhere between 247 and 252 grams a day depending on the recipe, landing between £1.33 and £1.36 a day. Those numbers rest on an assumed intake of about 840 kcal a day, the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75, and on our own energy estimate rather than a declared one.