Naturo Adult Dry review

The Good band is where our scoring settles this, level with the middle of the adult dry category. The reasons are plain enough to read off the bag. Chicken and lamb are each declared at 26%, so the named meat share is large by kibble standards. The label also splits both into their meal and fresh parts instead of hiding the difference. Protein comes out at 33.7% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate at 38.5%, comfortably under the 46.2% a typical adult dry food runs at. Protein and processing, nutritional balance and value all read Good, with transparency Outstanding, a set that reflects a label willing to say what it is doing. The one caveat behind those dry matter figures is that moisture is not declared, so they rest on the standard 8% assumed for a kibble.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 26%, (Chicken Meat Meal 23%, Chicken Digest 3%), Lamb 26% (Fresh Lamb 20%, Lamb Meat Meal 6%), Dried Brown Rice (26%), Dried Peas (10%), Dried Carrot (3.5), Poultry Fat (2.5%), Whole Linseed (2%), Dried Sugar Beet, Tomato Pomace (0.5%), Seaweed Meal, Brewer's Yeast, Fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) (0.1%), Mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS) (0.1%), Glucosamine, Chondroitin, MSM, Extract of Yucca Schidigera (0.02%), Rosemary Extract

The meat is the story here. Chicken at 26% is made up of chicken meat meal at 23% and chicken digest at 3%, while lamb at 26% is fresh lamb at 20% with lamb meat meal at 6%. Those two shares behave differently: the meal is already dried, so nearly all of it survives into the finished kibble, whereas fresh lamb is mostly water and shrinks a great deal in the oven. Even allowing for that, the bag carries a bigger named meat share than most kibbles manage.

Chicken digest sounds worse than it is. Animal tissue is broken down enzymatically and sprayed on to give the kibble a taste. It works too, since digest is the reason a lot of fussy dogs eat dry food at all. It is still animal material, so it counts if you are tracking exactly what your dog has eaten.

The only cereal is dried brown rice at 26%, and behind it come dried peas at 10% and dried sugar beet. With its bran still on, brown rice brings more fibre and minerals than the white sort. Beet pulp is the fibre that keeps stools firm. Dried carrot, tomato pomace at 0.5% and seaweed meal follow in smaller amounts, seaweed being a natural source of iodine and trace minerals.

On an otherwise specific label, poultry fat at 2.5% is the one vague entry. Given what else is in the bag it will very probably be chicken. The word poultry covers any domestic bird, though, so the bag cannot be used to rule chicken in or out.

Whole linseed at 2% supplies omega 3 in its plant form. A dog is slower to turn it into the skin active kinds than it is with fish, so a coat needs a few weeks to show any change. FOS and MOS sit at 0.1% each. They are the prebiotic pair, and the bacteria of the large intestine are what they feed, not the dog.

Glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM all appear, and all three are named without a percentage, which is the label's one moment of vagueness after a good deal of clarity. Selenium, by contrast, is declared twice, once as sodium selenite and once in an organic yeast grown form that the body generally takes up more readily, and that is a detail plenty of labels skip.

£5.00 a kilo, sold in a 2kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at about £1.14 a day, or roughly 229 grams. The allowance behind that is about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The maker's table asks 170 to 280 grams for a dog between 10kg and 20kg, so the two agree closely and your dog's shape can settle the rest.