Yarrah Adult review

This comes out in our Good band on our reading, and the middle of the dry adult category finishes in the same place. The organic certification and the MSC fish are real and they are not what our scoring measures. What it does see is 18% dried chicken at the head of a list that turns straight to oats, corn and wheat. Rice protein lifts the analysis from the plant side, and estimated carbohydrate comes to 46.6% of dry matter against a 46.2% typical. Fed to a healthy adult with no cereal trouble this is a perfectly comfortable everyday bowl, and the way its ingredients were grown and caught is the reason most people choose it.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried chicken* (18%), oats*, corn*, wheat*, chicken fat*, rice protein*, soy husks*, peas*, dried MSC herring¹, baobab*, hydrolised liver*, minerals, sunflower seed husks*, brewers yeast, MSC fish oil¹. * = organic. ¹From an MSC certified sustainable fishery, www.msc.org. 96.9% of agricultural resources is sourced from organic agriculture.

Dried chicken at 18% is the leading entry, and dried is the useful word. The water left it long before the mixer, so the whole of that 18% contributes protein to the finished kibble. Chicken fat and hydrolysed liver add to the animal side lower down, and dried MSC herring brings a second species along with it.

The cereal base is broad. Oats, corn and wheat take second, third and fourth place, with rice protein behind them. Oats are the pick of that group, easy to digest once cooked, with fibre plus manganese, magnesium and B1. Wheat is the one to know about. More dietary intolerance in dogs is linked with wheat than with any other cereal, so a dog who has reacted to it before is better served by Yarrah's grain free recipe.

Soy husks, sunflower seed husks and peas fill out the fibre and the plant protein. Husks are there for fibre. Rice protein does the job that pea protein does on other labels, propping up the analysis with a protein that a dog uses less well than meat. Protein still lands at 27.2% of dry matter, so the bowl is not short by any measure; it simply gets there with more help from plants than a meat-led kibble would need.

Baobab is the unexpected entry. It is a fruit pulp used for fibre and antioxidants, and it sits well down the list, a flourish on the recipe. Brewer's yeast nearby is a natural source of B vitamins, and every essential amino acid is in there behind them. Hydrolysed liver is a palatant, the ingredient that makes an organic recipe taste like something a dog wants.

MSC fish oil closes the list and is the recipe's marine omega 3 source, the form a dog's body puts to work on skin and coat most readily. Calcium works out at 1.2% of dry matter, a comfortable adult level. The one real gap for a label reader is the additive panel. The vitamin and trace element values are printed as numbers with no units beside them, so there is no checking them against anyone else's.

£4.49 a kilo, sold in 2kg, 5kg and 15kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 840 kcal a day on the standard 110 × bodyweight^0.75 maintenance estimate, which comes to about 244g a day, or £1.09. Let the waistline set the portion.