Scrumbles Adult & Senior Chicken review

In our scoring this reaches the Excellent band, a rung clear of the Good band that the middle of the adult dry market holds. Substance is what puts it there. Chicken is declared at 60% with 28% of it already dehydrated, protein converts to 35.9% of dry matter, and estimated carbohydrate to 37.4% against the 46.2% typical for a dry food. Reaching a carbohydrate figure that low while using rice and oats openly is the trick most cereal recipes never manage.

What the label chooses to tell you makes up the rest of the reading. Every trace mineral is dosed and the selenium comes as the yeast form. The probiotic is declared with its strain, and the preservative is named. Very little here is left to the imagination.

Ingredients, as declared: 60% Chicken (28% Dehydrated Chicken, 26% Freshly Prepared Chicken*, 4% Chicken Fat*, 2% Chicken Stock), 20.3% Rice*, 13.5% Oats*, 2.5% Dried Alfalfa*, 1.5% Salmon Oil*, Vitamins & Minerals, 0.7% Whole Linseed*, 0.4% Dried Carrot*, 0.1% Yeasts (source of prebiotic MOS), 0.02% Extract of Yucca Schidigera, Dried Spearmint. *natural ingredients

Chicken is declared at 60%, with the label doing the breakdown for you: 28% dehydrated chicken, 26% freshly prepared chicken, 4% chicken fat and 2% chicken stock. The 28% dehydrated share is the number that matters. Its water is gone before the kibble is made, so it goes in at close to its listed weight. The analysis follows through, with protein converting to 35.9% of dry matter and fat to 15.2%, a properly meat-led profile.

Rice at 20.3% and oats at 13.5% carry the starch. Cooked, both sit easily on a dog's digestion, and oats bring useful fibre and micronutrients with them. Carbohydrate works out at an estimated 37.4% of dry matter, comfortably below the 46.2% typical for an adult dry food. Energy is a declared figure here, 377 kcal per 100g.

The omega 3 here comes from salmon oil at 1.5%, and that is a good source: fish oil hands a dog the long chain omega 3s directly, with no conversion needed. Whole linseed at 0.7% adds the plant form alongside it. The trade is that a chicken-led recipe is not a fish free one, so a household avoiding fish needs to know the oil is in there.

The gut support is what makes this label stand out. A live probiotic is declared with its strain and its count, yeasts at 0.1% supply the prebiotic MOS, and yucca extract at 0.02% sits behind them. Dried alfalfa at 2.5% brings fibre and plant micronutrients, dried carrot at 0.4% a little vitamin A precursor, and dried spearmint finishes the list.

The additive panel is dosed in full: zinc at 100 mg, iron at 60 mg, manganese at 50 mg, copper at 8 mg, iodine at 1 mg and selenium at 0.05 mg per kilo. Vitamin E sits alongside them at 70 mg, and vitamins A and D3 are dosed in international units. The manganese and copper come as chelates, the better absorbed form, and the selenium as selenised yeast rather than the selenite salt most makers reach for. Zinc and iron stay in the older oxide and sulphate forms, so it is a mixed panel, but a generously dosed one. Preservation is natural mixed tocopherols.

Chicken stands alone as the meat here, which keeps things simple for a dog that suits chicken. It is not, though, a single-source recipe in the strict sense a diagnostic diet needs. The salmon oil is fish, and the copper and manganese chelates are bound to hydrolysed protein whose origin is not stated. For everyday feeding neither point matters at all. For an elimination trial run properly, both do.

£4.83 a kilo, sold in 2kg, 7.5kg, 12kg, 15kg and 24kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 223 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £1.08 a day. The energy figure on this label is declared rather than estimated, so that portion sits on firmer ground than most, though the waistline is still the final word.