Wagg Kennel: Rich in Chicken review

Both bags read Average in our scoring, with the Good band that holds the middle of the adult dry shelf sitting a step above them. Cereal carries most of the recipe, with the beef estimated at 54.4% carbohydrate on a dry matter basis and the chicken at 56.6%, against a typical 46.2%. The animal content is described by how it was made, not by which animal it came from. The beef reads the higher of the two, and its transparency pillar comes in at Excellent where the chicken reads Good. Taken plainly, this is a large bag of honest, fortified everyday food for dogs with easy digestions.

Ingredients, as declared: 26%, Meat Meal & Gravy* (with min 5% Chicken*) Whole Grain Wheat, Whole Grain Barley, Vegetable Fibre, Maize, 2% Chicken Fat (source of Omega 6), Whole Linseeds (source of omega 3), 2.3% Dried Green Peas & Beet Pulp*, Minerals & Vitamins, Chicory Root (1000 mg/kg), Yucca (150 mg/kg). 28% Meat Ingredients, with Chicken and Veg*equivalent per 100g to: *min 40g hydrated animal ingredients with min 20% Chicken, *min 10g Vegetables from dried peas and beet

The list opens with 26% meat meal and gravy. Meat meal is animal material cooked down and dried into a concentrated protein powder, which is why it sits at the top of so many dry foods. Wagg names a minimum of 5% beef or chicken within it. A footnote then puts the hydrated animal ingredients at 40g per 100g of kibble, with a minimum of 18% beef in the beef bag and 20% chicken in the chicken one. Everything outside those minimums stays unnamed.

Whole grain wheat comes next, then whole grain barley, maize and vegetable fibre. Whole cereals keep more fibre and micronutrients than milled ones, and most dogs digest them without any bother once cooked. Wheat is the one worth flagging, because no grain is named more often when a dog reacts to its food.

Vegetable fibre usually means beet pulp under a friendlier name, and dried whole green peas and beet then make up 2.3% between them. The fibre side of this recipe is doing more work than the vegetable side, and beet pulp is a genuinely useful ingredient for firming up a stool.

Chicken fat at 2% is the omega 6 source and whole linseed the omega 3 one. Chicory root at 1000 mg/kg supplies FOS, a prebiotic for the gut's useful bacteria. Yucca at 150 mg/kg is there for stool odour, which anyone cleaning up after several dogs will appreciate.

Sulphates and oxides stand in for chelates among the trace minerals, the ordinary choice at this level and perfectly workable. Zinc comes in at 50 mg, iron and manganese at 30 mg, copper at 5 mg, iodine at 0.5 mg and selenium at 0.1 mg per kilogram. Vitamins A, D3 and E are dosed alongside them.

Rich in Chicken lifts the named minimum to 20% chicken within the hydrated animal ingredients and reads 21.7% protein on a dry matter basis with estimated carbohydrate at 56.6%. Its energy figure is the measured one rather than an estimate, at 318 kcal per 100g.

Sold in one 15kg bag in both varieties.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 262 grams a day of the beef and 264 of the chicken, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label puts a dog of that weight between 185 and 310 grams, so let the waistline arbitrate.