McIntyres Adult Dry: Chicken review

Both bags land in our Poor band, where the typical adult dry food holds our Good band, and the arithmetic only confirms what the ingredients list has already said out loud. Umbrella terms take first, second, fourth and fifth place on that list, the named meat is a 4% entry, and carbohydrate does more of the carrying than protein does. There is nothing here to be nervous about. It is a complete kibble with a full vitamin and mineral panel printed behind it. Written for an adult dog with a settled stomach and no particular requirements, it delivers what the bag describes.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, Meat And Animal Derivatives, Chicken (4%), Oils And Fats, Derivatives Of Vegetable Origin, Vegetables, Peas (4%), Minerals, Yeasts

Cereals heads the list, and that one word can mean anything from good rice or oats to the lowest grade grain fraction going that month. The same applies to meat and animal derivatives in second place, a term that covers every fleshy part of any warm blooded land animal. Neither entry is proof of a poor ingredient, but neither lets you check, and both leave the maker free to change what sits behind them between batches.

The named meat, beef on one bag and chicken on the other, is declared at 4%. That reads as a flavour marker rather than the bulk of the animal content, which comes from the derivatives term above it. Peas are also declared at 4%, and whole peas are a genuinely useful addition, bringing fibre and a decent spread of minerals alongside their starch.

Oils and fats and derivatives of vegetable origin repeat the pattern further down the list, so the fat is not pinned to a plant or an animal either. Vegetables and yeasts round things off, again without saying which.

The analysis reads gently across the board. Protein converts to 23.1% of dry matter and fat to 8.8%, both at the modest end for a kibble, with estimated carbohydrate at 54.9% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. Energy is estimated at 316 kcal per 100g, under the 357 typical, which is why the feeding table asks for such generous portions.

Nothing on this label is stronger than the mineral panel. Every entry carries a figure, and zinc is supplied twice over, as a chelate at 390 mg/kg and as the oxide at 55 mg/kg. The larger share therefore comes in the form a dog absorbs more easily. Selenium comes as sodium selenite at 0.2 mg/kg, one of only two selenium forms European law permits in pet food and by far the more widely used. Copper is at 40 mg/kg, manganese at 80 mg/kg and iodine at 3 mg/kg alongside it.

Chicken fills the named 4% slot in this bag, and it is the only line on the ingredients list that changes. No meat is fed to dogs more often than chicken, which is exactly why more of them react to it than to anything else. If yours has form there, the beef version covers identical ground. The vitamin E entry is also written out in full as alpha tocopherol acetate on this label, which is the same ingredient the beef bag lists more briefly.

£0.79 a kilo, sold in a 12kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 265 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £0.21 a day. The bag's own table asks 200 to 360 grams for a 10kg dog and 360 to 540 grams for a 20kg dog. If the two disagree, the waistline decides.