Natural Instinct Natural Working Dog Range: Chicken & Tripe review

All six reach our Outstanding band, the plain Chicken among them, which is a remarkably even result for six labels sharing one construction. No category we score is stronger than raw, and its midpoint already sits in the Outstanding band, so this whole range is keeping company at the very top of the field. Where the Chicken differs is not in the banding, since protein and processing and nutritional balance read Outstanding on all six, with transparency Good and value Outstanding throughout. Its label is put together the same way, so the difference shows up in the analysis. Protein converts to 42.5% of dry matter against fat at 40.5%, the narrowest gap of any single bird recipe here.

Ingredients, as declared: beef green tripe 40%, chicken 45%, apple, butternut squash, carrot, kelp, salmon oil, spinach, vitamin c

Every label opens the same way, with the animal share fixed at 85% and named to species. The same six entries follow on each: apple and butternut squash, carrot and kelp, salmon oil and spinach. Vitamin C is written inline and is the only supplemented nutrient anywhere in the range. The rest of the micronutrition is being asked of kelp for iodine, the salmon oil for vitamin D and omega 3 fats, and the meat itself.

Three recipes keep to one bird from beginning to end. The Chicken, the Duck and the Turkey each name a single species at 85% and add no second animal. That is about as clean as a mainstream raw label gets when a dog is on an exclusion plan. Only the salmon oil stands between them and a true single source recipe.

Beef green tripe carries 40% of the Chicken & Tripe, and it earns its place. Unwashed stomach from a ruminant brings the animal's own enzymes and friendly bacteria along with its protein and fat. In the analysis that shows up as the highest fibre in the range, 9.2% of dry matter. It is also, by some distance, the recipe with the strongest smell.

Ground bone is doing the mineral work, and you can read it off the ash and calcium figures. Calcium converts to 4.83% of dry matter in the Turkey, 3.16% in the Chicken and 1.98% in the Chicken & Tripe, which follows the amount of frame in each grind. The Duck is the gap in that picture, with no calcium declared at all.

Carbohydrate is estimated by difference and sits between nothing and 3.7% of dry matter across the range, which is what happens when a label has no starch on it. Apple, butternut squash and carrot are there for fibre and micronutrients, not for bulk, and the figures back that up.

Chicken at 45% with beef green tripe at 40%. It is the lightest recipe here at 146 kcal per 100g and the highest in fibre at 9.2% of dry matter, both of which arrive with the tripe. Portions run largest and the bowl looks generous.

Per kilo, the Chicken is £4.19, the Chicken & Salmon and Chicken & Tripe are £4.69 each, the Turkey £4.79, the Beef & Chicken £5.09 and the Duck £5.49. Each recipe is sold 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 lands between £2.01 and £2.90 across the range. Energy density drives the spread, so the leanest recipe feeds in the largest portions.