Heights Farm Adult Extra Joint Care Grain Free: Turkey, Veg & Potato review

Both recipes reach our Good band, the duck a little ahead of the turkey, and that is where the typical adult dry food is found too. Both are helped by a named meat meal first on the list. The carbohydrate load also sits under the category norm, at 39.4% of dry matter in the duck and 44.4% in the turkey against 46.2% typical. The two finish close enough that the animal is the thing to choose on. The missing figures on the duck's additive table are the kind of small gap that shows up when a label is read closely.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey meal, peas, potatoes, chicken fat, freshly prepared turkey (min 38% total turkey), sweet potatoes, cellulose, Lucerne, un-molassed beet pulp, full fat linseed, salmon oil (source of omega 3 fatty acids), dried cranberries (0.5%), mannan oligosaccharides, glucosamine, seaweed, milk thistle, dried carrots, green lipped mussel, yucca shidigera, blackcurrant, rosehip, pomegranate, kale, beetroot (min 44% vegetables).

Both recipes lead with a meal, duck meal in one and turkey meal in the other, then bring freshly prepared meat of the same species further down and print a total for the two together. The meal is the dependable half of that arrangement. It goes into the mixer dry, where the freshly prepared share is mostly water and shrinks in the oven. The declared totals of 35% and 38% therefore read a little higher than the finished kibble delivers. The analysis bears that out at 28.9% and 27.8% protein on a dry matter basis, still a good level for a dry food.

Peas and potatoes take over from cereal, with sweet potatoes behind them and unmolassed beet pulp for fibre. Potato is plain starch, and a dog who needs energy released more slowly will get that from the sweet potato. Sweet potato is the more nutritious of the two, bringing vitamin A and extra fibre. Lucerne is the other name for alfalfa, and it adds more fibre plus a bit of plant protein. Both packs also carry a minimum of 44% total vegetables. That figure covers the whole plant side of the recipe with the peas and potatoes counted in.

The joint work is done by glucosamine and green lipped mussel, the latter a shellfish carrying its own marine omega 3s and used specifically for ageing joints. Around them sit milk thistle, yucca, seaweed, dried carrots, kale, beetroot, blackcurrant, rosehip and pomegranate, plus fructose and mannan oligosaccharides as prebiotics that feed the useful gut bacteria. These entries sit low on the list and the recipes do not depend on them, but they are a more thoughtful tail than most.

Fat comes from chicken fat with salmon oil and full fat linseed for omega 3, one marine and one plant so the recipe covers both. The duck recipe adds mono calcium phosphate as its calcium and phosphorus source, a mineral supplement rather than a dairy ingredient despite how the name reads.

The turkey's additive table is dosed all the way through: zinc at 128 mg as the sulphate with a further 33 mg as an amino acid chelate. Manganese is at 53 mg, iron at 26 mg, copper at 9 mg, iodine at 1.5 mg and selenium at 0.12 mg per kilo. Vitamin E is at 375 mg and L-carnitine at 250 mg. The duck panel is built the same way and carries the same L-carnitine and vitamin E doses, but its manganese figure and one of its zinc figures are missing from the printed table.

Turkey meal first with freshly prepared turkey behind it and a minimum of 38% total turkey declared, the larger of the two headline figures. Fat comes down to 14%, cellulose is added as a plain, purely mechanical fibre, and dried cranberries at 0.5% take the place of the apple. Its additive table is the complete one of the pair, with every trace element printed and dosed.

£4.07 a kilo for the duck and £4.00 for the turkey, both sold in 2kg and 15kg bags.

Reckon on roughly 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is about 225 grams of the duck or 218 grams of the turkey, at £0.92 and £0.87 a day. On the duck the label asks 160 to 310 grams for a dog between 25kg and 45kg, and on the turkey 160 to 315 grams. Weigh the first few bowls, then let the shape of your own dog decide.