Lifestage Grain Free Complete Wet Adult: Duck with Chicken review

Our scoring lands the chicken and the turkey in our Excellent band, level with the middle of the wet shelf, and the duck a step above them in Outstanding.

What the range does very well is name things. Every animal is a species with a percentage, every oil is a species, and the plant list is itemised down to the marigold. That openness is why these read as a solid and honest wet food. It is a good part of why they sit where they do on a strong shelf.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck 26%, Chicken 24%, Green Beans, Carrot and Cranberries 8% (from 0.94% Dried Fruit and Vegetables), Minerals, Sunflower Oil 0.125%, Salmon Oil 0.06%, Flaxseed Oil 0.06%, Dried Kelp, Dried Rosemary, Dried Chicory Root, Mannanoligosaccharides (Prebiotic MOS), Dried Nettle, Green Tea, Dried Rosehip, Glucosamine (0.005%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.0025%), Marigold.

Half of each pack is named animal, which is the number to hold on to. The chicken and the turkey each keep to a single land animal. The duck pack splits its 50% between duck at 26% and chicken at 24%, so the duck leads without having the pack to itself.

Green beans, carrot and cranberries are declared at 8%, and the label is unusually straight about how it gets there: that 8% is the fresh weight standing behind 0.94% of dried fruit and vegetables. Most labels would print one figure or the other and let you assume the better of the two. Carrots earn their place for the vitamin A and the soluble fibre, and cranberries are a familiar addition in this part of the shelf.

The oils are named to their source, which is worth something, but they are small. Sunflower oil at 0.125% with salmon oil and flaxseed oil at 0.06% each are seasoning quantities. The working fat in these packs comes from the meat. That is not a criticism of the recipe so much as a caution against buying it as an oil supplement.

Then comes the herbal tail: dried kelp, dried chicory root, mannanoligosaccharides, nettle, green tea, rosehip and marigold, with basil, rosemary or parsley depending on the pack. Chicory root and the MOS are both prebiotics for the bacteria in the gut. At these levels they are a gentle nudge and no more. Kelp is doing iodine duty.

Glucosamine at 0.005% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.0025% close every list. Both are genuinely useful compounds, and both are here in trace amounts. A friendly gesture towards an ageing joint is what they amount to. If a dog is already on a joint prescription, that stays and this becomes the dinner underneath.

Every entry in the short added panel carries a figure: vitamin A at 3000 IU, vitamin D3 at 350 IU and vitamin E at 40 mg. Then zinc at 25 mg, iron at 20 mg and manganese at 3.75 mg per kilo, identical across all three packs. On the analysis, protein converts to between 38.1% and 45.0% of dry matter and the estimated carbohydrate to between 3.5% and 17.1%, which straddles the 15.8% typical for adult wet food.

Duck at 26% with chicken at 24%, so the duck leads while chicken makes up the rest of the 50%. Dried rosemary is its herb. Of the three it carries the most carbohydrate, an estimated 17.1% of dry matter, and the least protein at 38.1%.

£4.62 a kilo across all three recipes, sold in a single 390 g size.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat roughly 1024 grams a day of the chicken, 913 grams of the duck with chicken or 933 grams of the turkey. That comes to £4.73, £4.22 and £4.31 in turn. All three work off 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The pack's own feeding table does not read sensibly, so it is not quoted here.