Natural Instinct Natural Range: Natural Chicken & Lamb review

All six of these recipes hold our Outstanding band. It helps to know what that word means here. The middle of the raw field also lands in our Outstanding band, so these six are keeping the fiercest company we score. Protein and processing and nutritional balance read Outstanding on all six recipes, with transparency at Good. What separates them is mostly how much each label itemises, and not what goes into the bowl.

Ingredients, as declared: chicken 50%, lamb heart 25%, lamb liver 5%, apple, butternut squash, carrot, kelp, salmon oil, spinach

The construction repeats itself, which is the whole idea. A named animal or a named pair takes 75% or 80% of the recipe, then apple, butternut squash, carrot, kelp, salmon oil and spinach finish it off. Carrot brings soluble fibre and the pigments behind vitamin A. Kelp supplies iodine and trace minerals, and the salmon oil is there for omega 3 fats. Five of the six labels print no vitamin and mineral premix at all, so the micronutrition is being asked of whole ingredients and the organ meats.

Green tripe turns up twice, at 75% in the Natural Beef Tripe and at 40% next to turkey in the Natural Tripe & Turkey. It is the unwashed stomach of a ruminant, and that is precisely why raw feeders reach for it. Nothing has been cleaned or bleached out, so the enzymes and friendly bacteria of the animal's own digestion arrive along with the protein and fat. It also smells like nothing else in the freezer, and most dogs adore it.

Organ meat is itemised where it appears, not folded into a general meat figure. The Natural Lamb carries lamb liver at 5%, and the Natural Chicken & Lamb pairs lamb heart at 25% with lamb liver at 5%, which is a working organ share rather than a token pinch. Liver holds much of an animal's vitamin A, B12 and copper, and heart is muscle meat that reads richer in minerals than trim.

Calcium is the figure that travels furthest. It converts to 3.34% of dry matter in the two chicken led recipes and 3.23% in the Natural Tripe & Turkey, which is ground bone doing its job. In the Natural Beef Tripe it drops to 0.78%, where tripe carries the recipe on its own. The Natural Fish takes a third route: it declares calcium carbonate and dicalcium phosphate on the list itself and lands at 0.95%.

The Natural Fish stands apart in every way. Salmon at 30%, a white fish mix at 30% and herring at 20% make up its animal share. Behind them comes the longest supporting list in the range: broccoli, kale, peas, spirulina, bilberry, brewers yeast, thyme and barley grass. Two entries deserve a note. The white fish mix is the only animal ingredient anywhere in the range not named to species. Barley grass is leaf, not grain, so it puts no cereal in the bowl.

No list here carries a starch source, so the carbohydrate figures, estimated by difference, behave themselves. Two recipes estimate at zero and most sit near it. The highest reading belongs to the Natural Fish at 6.5% of dry matter, which is the peas and the vegetable tail, not anything added for bulk.

Chicken leads at 50%, then lamb arrives as heart at 25% and liver at 5%, a proper organ share for a mainstream flavour. Its printed analysis matches the Natural Chicken figure for figure, so let the animals decide between the two, since the panel will not.

Per kilo, the Natural Chicken is £4.19, the Natural Chicken & Lamb £5.09, the Natural Beef Tripe and Natural Tripe & Turkey £5.29 each, the Natural Fish £6.09 and the Natural Lamb £6.49. Every recipe comes as a 1kg pack or as two 500g packs.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), a day's feeding works out between £2.20 and £3.36, according to the recipe. Energy density explains the spread, since the lighter recipes are fed in larger portions.