Symply Adult Large Breed review

This one comes out in our Good band, ahead of the middle of the adult dry category though inside the same band as it. What lifts it is straightforward. Close to half the recipe is named chicken, with the fresh, dried, fat and gravy shares each printed. Protein lands at 27.2% of dry matter and carbohydrate converts to 45.7%, just under the 46.2% the typical adult dry food carries. Protein and processing reads Good, transparency Outstanding and nutritional balance Average, so the recipe is consistently sound and never spiky. The joint supplements each carry a printed figure instead of a promise.

Ingredients, as declared: 49.3% Chicken (Fresh Chicken 26%, Dried Chicken 18%, Chicken Fat 3.7%, Chicken Gravy 1.6%), Sweet Potato (13%), Whole Oats (11.7%), Potato (11.5%), Pea Starch, Peas, Alfalfa, Salmon Oil (0.8%), Whole Egg, Glucosamine (1,660 mg/kg), MSM (1,660 mg/kg), Chondroitin (1,210 mg/kg), Cranberry, Carrot, Apple, Broccoli, Marigold Flower, Bilberry, Spinach, Prebiotics - Fructooligosaccharides (0.04%), Peppermint.

A declared 49.3% chicken is a big meat share for a kibble, and the label shows its working. Fresh chicken supplies 26% of that, dried chicken 18%, with chicken fat at 3.7% and chicken gravy at 1.6%. The dried share matters most, since the oven drives off the water that fresh meat brings with it. At 18%, the dried chicken is doing proper work in the finished food. Protein comes out at 27.2% of dry matter, comfortably above what a maintenance diet asks for.

Sweet potato at 13%, whole oats at 11.7% and potato at 11.5% divide the starch almost evenly, with pea starch and whole peas behind them. Whole oats bring soluble fibre and digest easily once cooked, and sweet potato adds fibre and vitamin A that plain potato does not. The balance leaves carbohydrate at 45.7% of dry matter, which is on the lower side for a dry food.

The joint support is the reason this recipe exists in its own right. Glucosamine and MSM are each declared at 1,660 mg per kilo, with chondroitin at 1,210 mg per kilo. All three are printed on the ingredients list and not implied on the front of the bag. Glucosamine and chondroitin are cartilage building blocks and MSM is included for inflammation, and having numbers against all three lets you judge them properly instead of taking the packaging on trust.

Salmon oil at 0.8% is where the marine omega 3s come from, and that is the form doing most for a dog's coat and joints. Whole egg adds a small quantity of very complete protein. Both are useful entries. They do put fish and egg in the bowl, so check the list if your dog is kept off either one.

The tail runs alfalfa, cranberry, carrot and apple. Broccoli, marigold flower, bilberry and spinach follow, with fructooligosaccharides declared at 0.04% to feed the large intestine and peppermint right at the end. Zinc is dosed twice, at 90 mg as the oxide and 45 mg as an amino acid chelate, the more readily absorbed form. Copper comes in at 10 mg, iodine at 2 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg per kilo. Dry matter calcium comes to 1.52%.

£5.92 a kilo, in 2kg, 6kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 238 grams a day, which works out at £1.41 a day. That day rate sits on around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The dogs this recipe is written for will mostly be a great deal heavier than that, and the label asks 290 grams for a 30kg dog and 450 grams for a 50kg one.