Skinner's Field & Trial Grain Free: Salmon review

The Original and the Salmon come out together in our Good band, which is a perfectly respectable result and the commonest one on the adult dry shelf. Meat share is the clearest difference on paper: the Original declares 30% poultry meat meal against the Salmon's 26.5%, and its ash comes in lighter. Protein and processing and nutritional balance read Average on both bags, while transparency reads Outstanding on the Salmon and Excellent on the Original. None of that should steer you away from the fish bag if fish is what your dog gets on with, since it is the same recipe idea with a different animal at the front.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon meat meal 26.5%, Sweet potato chips 26%, Potato flake, Vegetable oil, Peas, Whole linseed, Brewer's yeast, Beet pulp, Vitamins & minerals, Pea protein, Herb blend 750mg/kg, MOS 500mg/kg, FOS 500mg/kg, Glucosamine 350mg/kg, Chondroitin sulphate 150mg/kg, Seaweed 150mg/kg, Yucca 100mg/kg

Taking the cereal out of a working ration is harder than it sounds, because the starch has to come from somewhere and still bind a kibble together. The answer here is sweet potato chips at 25% in the Original and 26% in the Salmon, with potato flake behind them. Sweet potato brings its own fibre and a gentler release than a refined starch, and no wheat, maize, rice, oat or barley appears on either list.

Meat meal opens both recipes. It is the dried and rendered form, so the composition figure survives into the finished kibble with nothing lost in the oven. The Original declares 30% and the Salmon 26.5%. Protein reads 27.2% and 27.5% of dry matter respectively. The Original's estimated carbohydrate works out at 46.2% of dry matter, exactly the figure the typical adult dry food carries. That rests on the standard 8% moisture assumption, since its label prints no moisture of its own.

Peas and whole linseed appear in both bags, with brewer's yeast for its B vitamins and beet pulp for gentle fibre. The Salmon adds pea protein, which lifts the protein total using a plant rather than the fish, so the 25.0% on that label is not all arriving from the sea.

Not every label bothers to print amounts at the bottom of the list. Both of these do: glucosamine at 350mg/kg, chondroitin sulphate at 150mg/kg, MOS and FOS at 500mg/kg each, seaweed at 150mg/kg and yucca at 100mg/kg. The herb blend at 750mg/kg is the only entry left unexplained, and at that level it changes nothing nutritionally.

Trace minerals arrive in two forms on both bags, an oxide or a sulphate alongside a chelate, and the chelated share is the part a dog generally absorbs most readily. Taurine is declared at 100mg/kg, an amino acid the heart leans on, and vitamin E at 310mg/kg does double duty as an antioxidant in the food and a useful nutrient in the dog.

Salmon meat meal at 26.5% with sweet potato chips at 26%, vegetable oil in place of poultry fat, and pea protein added behind the peas. No other animal protein appears here. Reach for this one when your dog is doing better away from bird. Moisture is declared at 9.0%.

The Original is £3.71 a kilo and the Salmon £4.00, both sold in 2.5kg and 15kg bags.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). At that level the Original comes to about 237 grams a day and the Salmon to about 246. That comes to £0.88 and £0.98 a day. Skinner's own chart starts at 150 grams and reaches 260 grams at 20kg. The chart assumes a working dog, and a quieter one will need less than it says.