Vitalin Adult: Farmhouse Beef review

There is a clear order to the three. The Chicken leads the way, though all three hold our Good band, and the middle of the adult dry shelf lives there too. The chicken earns its place at the front on the largest declared meat share in the range and the lowest estimated carbohydrate, at 45.1% of dry matter against 50.6% for the pork. Nothing here is unusual or clever. It is a conventional British kibble that prints what it uses, and the reading reflects exactly that.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried Chicken (26%), Whole Barley, Potato, Freshly Prepared Beef (10%), Naked Oats, Whole Peas (5.0%), Chicken Oil, Sugar Beet, Chicken Gravy, Dried Carrot (1.0%), Dried Parsnip (1.0%), Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Prebiotic FOS) (0.3%), Citrus Extracts (0.2%), Mannanoligosaccharides (Prebiotic MOS) (0.1%), Glucosamine (340mg/kg), MSM (340mg/kg), Chondroitin (240mg/kg), Apple Cider Vinegar Powder (200mg/kg), Dried Spearmint (200mg/kg), Honey Powder (200mg/kg), Dried Nettle (200mg/kg), Dried Thyme (200mg/kg), Extract of Yucca Schidigera, Tyndallised Lactobacillus Helveticus HA-122 (0.005%).

Chicken at 38% is the headline on the lead recipe, and the split behind it is printed out: 27% dried chicken, 10% freshly prepared and 1% gravy. Before it reaches the oven, fresh meat is mostly water. The dried share is what survives into the finished kibble, and at 27% that share is doing genuine work. Protein converts to 29.7% of dry matter with estimated carbohydrate at 45.1%, a shade under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food.

Whole barley, potato and oats do the binding, with naked oats standing in for standard oats on the Farmhouse Beef and potato flake plus potato protein joining the barley on the Pork with Apple. Barley is easy going for most dogs once cooked and brings useful fibre with it, though it carries gluten, so a dog kept off wheat for that reason usually needs to avoid barley too.

Joint support is spelled out in numbers: glucosamine and MSM at 340 mg/kg each, chondroitin at 240 mg/kg. Those are sensible amounts for a general adult food, and useful on a dog that has started to think twice about the stairs.

Two prebiotics handle the gut side, chicory root extract at 0.3% for its FOS and mannan-oligosaccharides at 0.1%, both feeding the helpful bacteria further down. A tyndallised Lactobacillus culture at 0.005% sits alongside them. Sugar beet supplies the working fibre. That is the pulp left once the sugar is gone, not sugar itself.

Spearmint, nettle, thyme, honey powder and apple cider vinegar close the label like a herb garden, all dosed at 200 mg/kg. At that level they are seasoning and not substance. Honey powder is a sweetener in all but name, though at that dose it is a rounding error in the bowl. Whole linseed on the Chicken recipe is the more useful entry, supplying the plant form of omega 3.

Dried chicken at 26% leads here, with freshly prepared beef at 10% behind it and naked oats in place of the standard oats. Beef is the flavour and chicken is the larger animal share. Keep that in mind if you were choosing this to move a dog away from poultry.

£5.17 a kilo across all three recipes, sold in 2kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 247 grams a day of the Chicken, 246 of the Farmhouse Beef and 253 of the Pork with Apple. That assumes around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), and works out at £1.28, £1.27 and £1.31 respectively. The label's own table puts a dog of that weight somewhere between 150 and 250 grams. Let your dog's waistline settle any disagreement.