Hill's Science Plan Mature Adult 6+ Large review

Our scoring puts this in the Average band while the typical adult dry food sits in our Good band, and the reason is visible on the first line of the ingredients. Cereal comes before any meat, the named poultry share is small, and estimated carbohydrate finishes well above what is usual even for a dry food. Transparency reads Good, and that is the kinder side of the picture: the percentages that matter are printed, and every mineral carries a dose. None of that stops it feeding a large older dog steadily, which is precisely what it was designed to do.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, maize, chicken and turkey meal (chicken 6%; total poultry 9%), animal fat, digest, maize protein meal, vegetable oil, pea bran meal, flaxseed, minerals, oat bran, fructo-oligosaccharides, pork cartilage (source of chondroitin sulphate), crustacean shell hydrolysate (source of glucosamine). ActivBiome+ Multi Benefit prebiotic blend (0.6%): Oat bran, fructo-oligosaccharides.

Wheat and maize take the first two places, so cereal is the structure of this kibble rather than a supporting act. Of the two, wheat draws the most argument, since it is one of the grains dogs react to most often. The great majority eat it without a flicker. Maize protein meal appears further down as a concentrated plant protein, lifting the protein figure on the panel without adding meat to do it.

The animal protein is a combined chicken and turkey meal, chicken declared at 6% and total poultry at 9%. Rendering and drying happen before the meal goes into the mixer. Gram for gram it therefore carries a good deal more protein than fresh meat at the same declared percentage, and a poultry meal is a perfectly respectable source. Even allowing for that, 9% is a small share of the recipe, and protein converts to 18.9% of dry matter, which is gentle for a kibble.

Animal fat, digest and vegetable oil handle the energy and the flavour, and not one of the three names a species. Digest is a hydrolysed animal protein sprayed on to finished kibble to make it taste of something, and it works very well at that job. Set beside the unnamed fat, though, that leaves the label short of a full account of the animals in the bag.

The joint pair is genuinely present: pork cartilage as the chondroitin source and crustacean shell hydrolysate as the glucosamine source. Neither comes with a printed dose. Read them as a helpful inclusion. For a large dog carrying weight on ageing hips, a helpful inclusion is still worth having.

Fibre stays light at 3.4% of dry matter, with pea bran meal and oat bran doing that work. The ActivBiome+ blend at 0.6% adds fructo-oligosaccharides to oat bran, and that feeds the bacteria the gut already holds. The trace minerals are all dosed per kilo: zinc at 154 mg, iron at 88.1 mg, manganese at 9.1 mg, copper at 8.7 mg, iodine at 2.2 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg. Calcium works out at 0.77% of dry matter, a settled adult level.

Sold in 14kg and 18kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg dog in moderate condition would eat about 232 grams a day on this recipe, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). A large dog will of course get through more than that. Begin with the label's own feeding table and judge by the waistline after that.