Growling Tums Adult: Luscious Lamb & Rice review

Our Good band holds the lamb and the salmon, level with the typical adult dry food, while the chicken recipe sits a band lower in Average. The difference is mostly a matter of what the labels name and what the analyses carry. The salmon reads meatiest of the three at 25.0% protein on a dry matter basis with 50.1% carbohydrate, and the lamb follows at 23.9% and 55.5%. The chicken sits lowest at 21.7% protein with the same 55.5% carbohydrate, all measured against a typical 46.2%. Protein and processing reads Average across all three, while nutritional balance comes out Average on the salmon and Poor on the other two. The unnamed poultry meal is the largest part of why the chicken finishes lowest.

Ingredients, as declared: Lamb meat meal (min 26%), rice (min 26%), barley, brewers yeast, poultry fat, beet pulp, yucca, minerals and vitamins.

All three labels lead with a minimum rather than a fixed figure, meat at a minimum of 26% in the chicken and the lamb, fresh salmon at a minimum of 26% in the salmon. A minimum is honest as far as it goes, and the true share may well sit higher. It does leave the maker room to move between batches. That is worth understanding, not worrying about.

The meat forms differ in an important way. The chicken recipe uses poultry meal, which names a family and not a bird, the lamb uses lamb meat meal, which does name its species, and the salmon uses fresh salmon backed by salmon meal. Meal is the dried form and holds its weight through the oven, so pairing fresh salmon with salmon meal is the sounder construction of the three.

Rice does the carrying in the chicken and the lamb, with barley and oats behind it, while the salmon runs on potato with oats and maize. Estimated carbohydrate reaches 55.5% of dry matter in the chicken and the lamb and 50.1% in the salmon, above the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. That is what building a kibble around a grain or a tuber at this share tends to produce.

Poultry fat is the added fat everywhere, refined in the salmon recipe, and salmon oil goes in on top of it there for omega 3. In the chicken and the lamb, brewer's yeast does duty as a B vitamin source and a flavour lift. Beet pulp is the fibre throughout, and yucca extract sits in all three with kennel odour in mind. The salmon recipe alone adds dicalcium phosphate for calcium and phosphorus.

The trace element panel is shared across the range and every figure is printed: iron at 50mg, zinc at 50mg, manganese at 35mg, copper at 15mg, iodine at 1mg and selenium at 0.3mg per kilo. Vitamin A and vitamin D3 are dosed per kilo alongside them, and the chicken and salmon recipes add biotin at 150mcg for skin and coat. Sodium selenite supplies the selenium here. Two forms are permitted and this is the everyday one.

This has the shortest list in the range, and only its main meat names a species, lamb meat meal at a minimum of 26%. Protein reads 22.0% with fat at 8.0%. No fish appears on this label at all, though poultry fat is still the added fat.

The chicken and the lamb are £3.67 a kilo and the salmon is £3.93. Chicken and salmon come in 3kg, 7.5kg, 10kg, 15kg and 20kg, the largest of those as two 10kg bags, and the lamb in 3kg, 7.5kg, 10kg and 15kg.

For a 15kg adult in moderate condition the three land at 227 to 243 grams a day, £0.87 to £0.89, using a maintenance estimate of about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75). Feed to the ribs and adjust from there.