Rathlin Raw Complete Puppy: Beef with Green Tripe review

This one lands in our Outstanding band. In raw, it is worth saying what that means. The middle of the raw puppy field sits in our Outstanding band too, because raw as a format begins with named meat and rarely needs anything artificial to prop it up. Landing where it does is a mark of how fierce that field is. Nothing here is going wrong. Protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Outstanding, while transparency reads Excellent.

Ingredients, as declared: 35% Irish Beef, 34% Green Beef Tripe, 10% Seasonal Vegetables and berries, 10% Chicken Bone, 5% Kidney, 5% Liver, 0.5% Islander Rathlin Kelp and 0.5% Salmon Oil.

The recipe splits its beef in two. Irish beef at 35% brings the muscle meat, and green beef tripe at 34% brings something quite different. Tripe is the unwashed stomach lining of a grazing animal, carrying the digestive flora and enzymes of the animal that ate the grass. It smells like nothing else in a freezer and dogs adore it, which is why so many raw feeders keep a tripe recipe on hand for a puppy going through a fussy patch.

Chicken bone at 10% is the calcium source, ground into the mince rather than added as a mineral. That is the standard raw approach and it works well. It does put chicken into a recipe with beef on the front, which an owner managing a chicken sensitivity will want to spot. No calcium figure is published against it, so the inclusion is all you have to read the level from.

Kidney and liver come in at 5% each, a properly sized organ share for a growing dog. Liver carries vitamin A, iron and the B vitamins at concentrations no muscle meat can match, and kidney adds selenium behind it. Which animal they came from is not stated, though. On a recipe that names its beef as Irish and its kelp by the island it was cut from, leaving the offal unattributed does stand out.

Islander Rathlin Kelp at 0.5% is a charming touch, and a source of iodine and trace minerals with it. Salmon oil at 0.5% brings in long chain omega 3, which a growing brain and coat rely on. The vegetable and berry share is 10% and described as seasonal, so the exact greens will move through the year. No additives panel is published at all, and the maker's stated position is that a food built this way has no need of artificial vitamins.

The analysis reads lean and wet. Moisture is declared at 76.0%, high even by raw standards, which leaves protein converting to 54.2% of dry matter and fat to 33.3%, a strong protein figure for growth. Carbohydrate estimates at 4.1% of dry matter, and that figure is a rounding of the unmeasured remainder. No starch goes in the bowl. Energy is our own estimate at 116.9 kcal per 100g, and a mince this wet feeds in generous portions.

£6.35 a kilo. It comes as a 500g chub and a 1kg chub, with an 18kg single blend box of eighteen 1kg chubs for anyone stocking a freezer properly.

No daily figure is given here. A growing puppy's requirement moves week by week, and no label declares an energy figure for this one. Work from the maker's own puppy guide and revisit it as your puppy grows.