McAdams Air Dried: Free Range Turkey review

Every recipe here sits in our Excellent band, and the three finish level with each other, so your dog's preference rather than the ranking decides between them. We have no air dried cohort to set them against, so this reading comes wholly from what is printed. The labels show a meat share in the mid seventies or above, poultry liver counted separately from the headline, percentages on almost every plant entry, and a supplement panel that prints its doses. Protein and processing reads Outstanding on all three recipes, transparency matches it, value reads Excellent throughout, and nutritional balance lands Excellent on the two poultry recipes with Good on the boar.

Ingredients, as declared: Free Range Turkey (75.4%), Free Range Turkey Liver (6%), Sweet Potato (6%), Vegetable Oil Glycerine (Rapeseed), Minerals, Fermented Whey, Dental Seaweed (Ascophyllum Nodosum) (0.5%), Kale (0.5%), Turmeric (0.5%), Chicory Root, Beet Pulp, Calcium Carbonate, Carrots. Joint Care Pack: Glucosamine 2,000mg/kg, Chondroitin Sulphate 2,000mg/kg, MSM 1,000mg/kg.

Air drying is the quiet middle road between raw and kibble. Warm air draws the water out slowly, with no die and no steam forcing it at speed. What comes out stays soft enough to break between your fingers, and moisture is declared between 18.7% and 24.9%. Because the meat has not been cooked hard, these headline figures represent a great deal of actual animal, which shows in protein converting to between 30.1% and 33.0% of dry matter.

Each recipe keeps to one animal. Free range chicken at 74.7% with 6% chicken liver, free range turkey at 75.4% with 6% turkey liver, and wild boar at 80% standing alone. Liver declared as its own line is a good sign anywhere, and here it comes with a figure attached. Organ meat carries vitamin A, B12 and copper in a way muscle meat simply does not.

Only sweet potato at 6% carries any real carbohydrate weight. Beet pulp and chicory root sit behind it and do the fibre work. The inulin in chicory root is a soluble fibre, and the gut bacteria you want make good use of it. Beet pulp is a steady and well tolerated fibre that deserves a better reputation than it has. Rapeseed glycerine keeps the texture pliable, and naming the plant it came from is more than many labels manage.

Fermented whey is the single dairy entry and it appears on all three lists. It is there as a protein source with a live culture history behind it, and it is the reason none of these recipes counts as dairy free. Dental seaweed at 0.5% is Ascophyllum nodosum, a kelp included for its reputation on plaque, and calcium carbonate tops up the minerals in recipes that carry no bone.

The joint package closes each label, with glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate and MSM all given printed doses per kilo. Glucosamine and chondroitin are the pair most often chosen for cartilage support, and MSM usually joins them for its anti inflammatory reputation. The panel behind them is dosed too, with vitamin D3 at 666IU and zinc at 83mg on the chicken recipe. The trace elements are protein hydrolysate chelates, the form usually picked for absorption.

The rest of each list is there for character. Blueberries, spinach and carrots on the chicken, kale and turmeric on the turkey, pumpkin at 1.5% with banana and broccoli on the boar. All of it is declared between a quarter of a percent and a percent and a half, which is a maker telling you honestly how small a small inclusion really is.

Free range turkey at 75.4% with 6% turkey liver, and kale and turmeric where the chicken has berries and seeds. Energy sits in the middle at 384 kcal per 100g, with fat converting to 33.9% of dry matter. When a dog wants poultry but has had its fill of chicken, this is the one.

The Free Range Chicken works out at £46.66 a kilo, the Free Range Turkey at £48.66 and the Free Range Wild Boar at £51.33. Each recipe comes in a 400g pack and a 1.5kg pack.

As a guide, reckon on about 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is between 206 and 235 grams a day, depending on the recipe. Chicken comes to £10.95 a day, turkey £10.64 and boar £10.59.