Hill's Science Plan Adult 1-6 Medium: With Lamb & Rice review

Our scoring puts both recipes in the Average band, a step below the Good band where the middle of the adult dry category sits. The reasons are structural. Cereals lead the ingredient list, the declared animal share is small, and two of the working entries name no species at all. What the scale is not built to reward is the thing this brand actually trades on, which is a recipe held to the same nutrient targets bag after bag with the minerals dosed in print. Fed to a medium adult who gets on with cereals, both versions do the job they were written for.

Ingredients, as declared: ActivBiome+ Multi Benefit prebiotic blend (0.6%): Oat bran, fructo-oligosaccharides. COMPOSITION: Broken rice (20%), wheat, maize, soybean meal, lamb meal (9%), animal fat, maize protein meal, vegetable oil, digest, flaxseed, minerals, oat bran, fructo-oligosaccharides.

The chicken recipe opens on wheat and maize, with chicken and turkey meal third at 9% chicken and 14% total poultry. Naming the birds is a genuine plus. A meal has had the water taken off it before mixing. The declared figure is therefore close to what survives into the finished kibble. The lamb and rice recipe reorders things, leading on broken rice at 20% ahead of wheat and maize, with soybean meal and then lamb meal at 9% following on.

Wheat is the entry most owners will stop at. It binds a kibble beautifully, and the great majority of dogs digest it with no fuss whatsoever. Wheat is also the grain owners hear about most when a dinner starts disagreeing with a dog. If that has never been your dog's story, there is nothing here to lose sleep over. If it has, the position of wheat on both lists is worth knowing in advance.

Two entries on this label say nothing about their animal, the added fat and the digest. Digest is the palatant, a broken down animal protein brushed over the kibble to make it worth eating, and on that count it does its job well. That is the honest limit for anyone who must pin down the animal in the bowl. Soybean meal in the lamb recipe is the other ingredient owners tend to ask about, a plant protein that is digestible enough for most dogs but not the reason anyone reaches for the bag.

The analysis reads as you would expect from a cereal led kibble. Protein converts to 23.4% of dry matter in both recipes. Fat runs to 15.2% in the lamb, 16.2% in the chicken. Estimated carbohydrate reaches 53.8% and 54.7% against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food. Calcium works out at 0.75% and 0.77% of dry matter, comfortable adult levels in each case.

The small print is where the brand's habits show. Every trace mineral is dosed on the label. Zinc reads 147 mg per kilo in the lamb and 140 mg in the chicken, with iron at 83.8 mg and 84.5 mg. Copper, manganese, iodine and selenium all have figures printed too. The prebiotic blend is declared at 0.6% and broken down into its parts, oat bran and fructo-oligosaccharides, which is more candour than most labels manage for a blend carrying a trade name. Flaxseed sits further down as the plant omega source.

Broken rice leads at 20%, ahead of wheat, maize, soybean meal and lamb meal at 9%. Protein matches the chicken recipe at 21.5%, with fat a shade lower at 14.0%. No bird is named anywhere on the list. For a medium dog that has soured on poultry, that is the point. The animal fat and digest keep their species to themselves, so treat this as a swap of named protein and nothing more.

The chicken recipe comes in 14kg, 6kg and 2.5kg bags, and the lamb and rice in 18kg, 14kg and 2.5kg. No checked per kilo figure was to hand when this was written, so none is quoted here.

For portioning, the standard maintenance estimate of 110 kcal × bodyweight^0.75 puts a 15kg adult in moderate condition at roughly 840 kcal a day, which is about 226 grams of either recipe. The label's own table lands on 230 grams for that same dog. The two land close together, and the waistline can settle the difference.