Nature's Variety Instinct Chicken Raw Boost

This kibble has a long name...
Conker has been eating one of Nature's Variety's recently introduced Raw Boost kibbles for a short while now. This is the breakdown and brief review.


A while ago I found a coupon for $3 off a bag of Nature's Variety Raw Boost, and I also had a Petco coupon for some percentage off, or like, $5, or something. Can't remember.
Without these discounts I would not have purchased this kibble since it's something like $20+ for 4.1 pounds of food. But since I had them, I figured why not give it a shot?
My Petco has a shitty selection of foods and only had the Chicken formula in the smallest bag, so that's what I got.

Chicken Meal, Tapioca, Chicken Fat (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid), Pumpkinseeds, Menhaden Fish Meal, Sun-Cured Alfalfa Meal, Montmorillonite Clay, Natural Chicken Flavor, Freeze Dried Chicken (including Freeze Dried Ground Chicken Bone), Freeze Dried Turkey, Freeze Dried Turkey Liver, Freeze Dried Turkey Heart, Vitamins (Choline Chloride, Vitamin E Supplement, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate, Biotin, Niacin Supplement, Vitamin A Acetate, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Beta Carotene, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid), Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Sodium Selenite, Ethylenediamine Dihydriodide), Salt, Dried Kelp, Apples, Carrots, Butternut Squash, Inulin, Flaxseed Oil, Peas, Chicken Eggs, Ground Flaxseed, Broccoli, Lettuce, Spinach, Apple Cider Vinegar, Parsley, Honey, Salmon Oil, Rosemary Extract, Olive Oil, Blueberries, Alfalfa Sprouts, Persimmons, Rosemary, Sage, Clove, Yeast Culture (Saccharomyces Cerevisiae), Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Aspergillus niger Fermentation Extract, Dried Trichoderma longibrachiatum Fermentation Extract, Dried Bacillus subtilis Fermentation Extract.

Looong ingredient list! This is partly due to the "Raw Boost" bits that have their own ingredient list on top of the kibble's. In general, it looks okay, nothing really sticks out as bad to me.

Crude Protein (min):  42.0%
Crude Fat (min):  22.0%
Crude Fiber (max): 4.5%
Moisture (max): 8.0%
Calories per cup (calculated) – 495 kcal/cup
Calories per kg (calculated) – 4170 kcal/kg

I like high-protein foods since they tend to have better results than lower to mid-range protein foods (at least with my dogs that is) so I do not find the protein content of this food to be excessive at all. (It is almost identical to that of a typical homemade raw meal, minus the moisture so it appears more concentrated but is in fact, the same.)
Conker requires about a cup and a half of this kibble in order to maintain "good" body condition. However, during the first half of feeding this food he was getting 1 cup with some raw foods as a separate meal. For the latter half he wouldn't eat the raw foods, and not much of the kibble.

Anywho...

The kibble has the typical round, dense shape, is not overly smelly nor greasy. The "Raw Boost" bits are cylindrical in shape and vary in length. They hardly weigh a thing, and I was quite disappointed in how few there were in the bag. Seems more like a "Raw Taste" more than a boost.
Speaking of raw... I do not consider freeze-dried or dehydrated products to be fully-raw, especially if they are "sterilized."

So, how did Conker do on this kibble?

Coat was okay, a bit drier than I like despite fish oil and eggs/raw foods being included during the first half of feeding this kibble. Coat got drier during the second half, but nothing drastic. He also developed that kibble-fed "doggy smell" but like most high-end kibbles it was not overly obnoxious or easily noticable.
Poop is regular for a high-end, high-protein, low-carb food, (compact, non-smelly) but is light colored, a sort of yellowish tan. Don't know if that's normal or because this is a chicken-based food. (Raw chicken poop looks about the same.)
Teeth are okay. The raw bones help to keep them clean, but they would have otherwise developed a bit of tartar despite him chewing every little piece of kibble. (In my experience kibble does not clean teeth, despite what marketing says. It sticks to them, especially when overly-chewed like Conker does, and I do not concider that to be a good thing.)
Muscle-tone was great. He put on a lot of muscle since the Alaska trip and I think this food certainly had helped.
He burps a lot on this food, something I am looking into. He also has NASTY deathfarts, and licks his butt often. I think there is a digestive anomaly going on here.

Note: Conker always burps after a meal, but not a small snack, which he does when eating this food (snacks on it). He also "normally" has deathfarts, but not as often as on this food. The butt-licking is also somewhat normal, but again, is increased on this food.

Something that hasn't happened on other kibbles is this: Conker has thrown up multiple times. I don't know if the raw food caused it or the kibble did, but every time he's thrown up there was kibble in the nasty, and he'd eaten the kibble many hours before then. I do not know for sure if it's connected or what.

Conker does not seem to like this food very much. At first he thought it was great and would finish his entire bowl in one sitting. Then he gradually lost interest, and now it's very difficult to get him to eat more than 1/4 cup at a time. He hardly eats a full cup a day, and dressing it up does not help.
However, he also won't touch most raw foods either, so I don't know if the kibble is causing that or if it is something else, and if it is something else, he might actually like this kibble a lot.


In general, I find this food to be comparable to other high-protein kibbles I have tried. Was there much of a difference between this food and the others, particularly the other Instinct formula I've tried? No. In fact, I found the results to be slightly lesser quality, but still good.
Bottom line: I do not think the "Raw Boost" has done anything at all other than be a fancy marketing scheme to get people to buy a lesser amount of food for a higher price than the other "plain" formulas Nature's Variety produces.

Would I feed the Raw Boost again? Sure! If I could get it for cheap cheap like I did this time (and if the dang dog would eat it). If not, no, I wouldn't bother with it. I'd get the regular formula instead.