Wolf Of Wilderness Dry Adult Mini: Wild Hills review

Both recipes come out in our Good band. Most of the adult dry category settles there as well. What holds them there is straightforward. Named chicken heads each list, and the mineral panel is printed in full with its doses. Carbohydrate works out at 42.3% and 43.6% of dry matter, against the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. They do not climb further because the fresh meat headline loses its water in the oven, and because a handful of working entries, poultry fat among them, name a family instead of a bird.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh chicken (41%), potato flakes, duck protein [dried] (10%), poultry protein (9% partly dried and hydrolysed), dried beet pulp, poultry fat, linseed, apple [dried], calcium carbonate, brewer's yeast [dried], sodium chloride, egg [dried], wild berries [dried] (0.3% cranberries, currants, raspberries, elderberries), salmon oil, sunflower oil, yeast cell walls [dried] (0.2% beta-glucans and mannan-oligosaccharides), chicory inulin, herbs [dried] (0.2%: Yarrow herb, dandelion herb, dandelion root, camomile herb, nettle herb, ribwort leaves, St. John's wort).

Fresh chicken leads both labels, at 25% on Blue River and 41% on Wild Hills. Read fresh carefully, because the oven bakes that water away. What survives into the finished kibble is the dried backup, and both recipes have one, chicken protein at 16.9% on Blue River, dried duck protein at 10% with poultry protein at 9% on Wild Hills. The analysis lands where that construction suggests, with protein converting to 29.3% and 28.3% of dry matter.

Potato flakes do the binding in both, with dried beet pulp behind them carrying the fibre. Neither label carries a cereal. Blue River also lists pea protein, a plant protein that helps the headline figure along without adding meat to the bowl, so notice it and do not count it.

Salmon runs through the range as the omega source, as oil in both recipes and as dried salmon protein at 4% in Blue River on top of that. It is a sensible way to bring marine omega 3s into a chicken bowl, and it does mean neither variety can be called fish free.

The gut thinking is printed on the label. Yeast cell walls at 0.2% supply beta-glucans and mannan-oligosaccharides, the prebiotic fraction that feeds the friendly end of the gut flora, with chicory inulin just behind them doing similar work.

The wild berries at 0.3% and the seven herbs at 0.03% apiece are the range's signature flourish rather than its substance. Cranberry and elderberry are pleasant things to find on a label and nettle does no harm, but nothing at that level changes a bowl. The chicken and the mineral panel are what this food stands on.

Blue River doses its trace minerals as protein hydrolysate chelates, the form usually picked when absorption is the priority. Zinc is at 100 mg, iron at 200 mg, manganese at 30 mg, copper at 12.5 mg and iodine at 2.3 mg per kilo. Wild Hills prints those same headline amounts as sulphates and adds a further 50 mg of chelated zinc alongside.

The bigger fresh meat headline of the pair at 41% chicken, with dried duck protein at 10% and dried egg further down the list. Duck and egg both count as named allergens here, so this is the wider label of the two for a dog with a known trigger. It is also the denser of the two at 385 kcal per 100g.

Blue River is £6.00 a kilo and Wild Hills £5.50 a kilo.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 228 grams of Blue River a day, or about 218 grams of Wild Hills. That works out at £1.37 a day on Blue River and £1.20 on Wild Hills, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label's own table asks 145 grams for a 10kg dog on Blue River and 140 grams on Wild Hills, so if the two guides disagree, go by how the dog looks after a fortnight.