Ingredients (Adult Original Chicken & Rice)
Chicken (20%), rice (15%), maize, dehydrated poultry protein, maize gluten, wheat, animal fat (protected with mixed tocopherols), digest, beet pulp, fish oil, dried egg, yeast, calcium phosphate, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, calcium carbonate, minerals. Antioxidant: Tocopherol rich extracts of natural origin. EC Additive: Tocopherol rich extracts of natural origin.
Feeding Guide
The guide for a 20Kg dog is around 250g per day.
Costings and Comparisons
On 7th October 2010 a 15Kg bag was available online for 63.90€
The daily feeding cost for giving our 20Kg dog 250g of Purina Pro Plan Original Adult works out at 1,07€
To feed the Natural Hypoallergenic Burns Chicken & Rice would cost only 0,75€ per day (Based on 15Kg PAWSONLINE pricing on 7th October 2010). In fact you could even feed Applaws for only 0,82€ per day! No contest here then....
A 15Kg bag of Purina Pro Plan would last the 20Kg dog 60 days but 15Kg of Burns, Natural Dog Food, Fish 4 Dogs or Applaws would last around 70-75 days!!!
Star Rating
We can't even find the generosity to allocate a single star to this - therefore 0.
Notes
The first thing to notice is the "Chicken" - this appears top in the ingredients list at 20% - however this is not listed as "chicken meal" so it is not quoted at it's dry weight - once the water is removed the level of chicken falls to 5%. Now, if you don't think of chicken as being that lovely Sunday lunch but rather think of the parts that are not included in the Sunday lunch you are getting nearer to understanding what they mean by chicken - intestines, lungs, heart, head, feet - in fact all the bits that can't otherwise be sold.
Rice is listed 2nd but includes no indication of quality (ie Brown Rice or Whole Rice) and therefore it is likely to be a poor relation. Then we have Maize and a bit further down the list is wheat. This food is a cereal based product only made palatable by the inclusion of the flavour enhancers "dehydrated poultry protein", animal fat (remember this is made from left over bits of connective tissue, fat, skin, bones etc from any unidentified animal remains squeezed through a fine mesh at high pressure), extra salt and digest (again a series of left overs from human food processing).
Of course the analysis figures that they quote match the requirements for a dog's metabolism - if they didn't then the dog would be far from well - but adding a teaspoon of this chemical or adjusting the balance of ingredients - however questionable - can make even a bowl of dead leaves attain these levels - it is not a measurement of quality. (Their own marketing material states "extra vitamins and minerals are scientifically selected" - how else would they be?).
It is interesting that their dogs are classed as old after just 7 years - that is only 49 in human terms and we have to work for AT LEAST another 16 years! Our own, now departed, Bearded Collies (2) and Old English Sheepdogs (2) (both breeds average lifespan 10 years) made it to more than 14 years old and we put this down to good nutrition (actually the Burns foods!) and they stayed pretty active and very intelligent until the end.
Interesting snippet from the advance publicity for the "Purina ONE beyOnd" product scheduled for January 2011 is that in this new brand "Corn and Wheat are noteably absent" - so someone there has realised that their food has not been up to scratch (or maybe too much scratching?). However - watch this space because we have yet to find a list of ingredients for the new brand and all they say is that it contains Meat as the first ingredient - but if this is not "meat meal" or "dried meat" then when the 75% water is removed it will no longer be the first ingredient!