Optimum Pet Health Senior Trays review

These trays finish in our Good band. The middle of the adult wet shelf sits a step higher, in our Excellent band. The lift comes from the ingredients list: chicken first at 65%, a plant side that stops at peas and carrot, and a long tail of named, dosed extras. What the placement cannot lean on is the analysis, because the label we have does not print one, so nothing here is converted to dry matter. Transparency reads Excellent. Protein and processing lands at Good, and value with it. A fuller declaration is the one thing that would give the recipe more to be credited for.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (65%), Dried Peas, Dried Carrot, Minerals, Salmon Oil (0.1%), Prebiotic MOS (0.1% including beta glucans 0.03%), Prebiotic Chicory (0.1% including inulin 0.06%), Glucosamine (0.05%), Chondroitin (0.01%), MSM (0.01%), Dandelion Root (0.01%), Tyndallised Lactobacillus helveticus HA-122 (0.005%), Tyndallised Lacticaseibacillus paracasei HA-108 (0.005%), Turmeric (0.005%, source of curcumin), Dried Melon Juice (0.005%, source of superoxide dismutase), Black Pepper (0.0005%).

Chicken at 65% is the first entry and the only meat named. Dried peas and dried carrot follow, and that is the whole plant side, so nothing cereal based appears here.

Salmon oil at 0.1% brings the omega 3 fats. It also puts fish into the recipe, something to know when a dog is being kept strictly off fish.

The prebiotics come with their working parts shown: MOS at 0.1% with beta glucans at 0.03% declared inside it, and chicory at 0.1% with inulin at 0.06%. Two tyndallised cultures follow at 0.005% each, Lactobacillus helveticus HA-122 and Lacticaseibacillus paracasei HA-108, both named down to the strain.

Joint support runs to glucosamine at 0.05%, chondroitin at 0.01% and MSM at 0.01%. Those are modest supporting levels. A dog already on a vet's joint plan should stay on it, with this underneath.

The tail is an older dog's medicine cabinet in miniature: dandelion root at 0.01%, turmeric and dried melon juice at 0.005% each, and black pepper at 0.0005%, which is there to help the turmeric along. None of it is present in quantity, and none of it would be your reason for choosing the tray.

The one thing this label withholds is the analysis. Without protein, fat and moisture figures there is no dry matter conversion to test the meat claim against, so the 65% has to be taken as printed. Energy is declared at 121 kcal per 100g, on the richer side for a wet food where 97 kcal per 100g is typical. That is why portions here look smaller than wet feeding usually asks for.

£4.22 a kilo, in 395g trays sold twelve to a multipack.

As a guide, feeding works out at around £2.93 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). At 121 kcal per 100g that comes to roughly 694 grams a day, a little under two trays.