Royal Canin Veterinary Health Nutrition Mature review

Ingredients, as declared: Maize, dehydrated poultry protein, wheat flour, wheat, vegetable fibres, maize flour, animal fats, dehydrated pork protein*, maize gluten, hydrolysed animal proteins, beet pulp, minerals, fish oil, soya oil, dried tomato pulp (source of lycopene) (0.84%), fructo-oligo-saccharides, borage oil, marigold meal.

Maize opens the list, then dehydrated poultry protein, then wheat flour and wheat as two separate entries, with vegetable fibres and maize flour behind them. Cereals therefore occupy most of the top of this label, one dried poultry protein set among them.

Dehydrated pork protein further down is the one animal entry here with a species attached to it. Poultry covers a family of birds. Nothing is named on the animal fats, nothing on the hydrolysed animal proteins, and fish oil brings fish in. Pork is the detail to spot if your dog has been kept off it for any reason.

Dried tomato pulp is declared at 0.84% and flagged on the label as a lycopene source. Borage oil sits near the end, a plant oil chosen for the fatty acids in it, while beet pulp and fructo-oligosaccharides handle the fibre alongside the vegetable fibres higher up.

Protein reads 23.0% as declared, or 25.3% of dry matter, with fat at 14.0%, which is 15.4% dried down. Crude fibre comes to 7.2%, or 7.9%, moisture is printed at 9.0%, and the carbohydrate estimate is 41.1% as fed and 45.1% of dry matter. The energy figure of 343 kcal per 100g is our own calculation, since the pack prints none. What an older dog under treatment should be getting from proportions like these is a conversation for the consulting room.

Nutritional additives are dosed in print per kilo. Vitamin A comes to 29500 IU and vitamin D3 to 795 IU. Zinc is at 137 mg, manganese at 50 mg, iron at 39 mg, copper at 12 mg, iodine at 3.9 mg and selenium at 0.08 mg. Two technological additives are declared as well, clinoptilolite of sedimentary origin at 5 g and lecithin at 300 mg, the first a mineral clay used as a binder and the second an emulsifier. Preservatives and antioxidants are named only as groups.

The feeding table on the pack is headed by body condition and runs from 205 grams a day at 10kg through 278 grams at 15kg to 408 grams at 25kg. Anything your vet has written for your own dog takes precedence over those rows.

It comes in 3.5kg and 10kg bags.