Instinctive Bite Dog Food Review

WebsiteInstinctive Bite
Country of originAustralia
Available fromPet Circle

Instinctive Bite is Pet Circle’s answer to a decent home brand. Don’t let the words “home brand” put you off, it’s pretty good.

We’ll take a look at the Original Chicken formula for this review, but they also offer grain free formulas if that’s your preference.

The first ingredient is chicken meal, so we’re off to a good start. The packaging claims 60% meat, so we can be pretty sure the chicken is a significant ingredient. We also find poultry oil and poultry digest further down the ingredients.

Instinctive Bite Dog Food Review

The grain inclusion is the favourable brown rice. It’s one of the better choices of grain, especially compared to wheat or ambiguous “cereals” which many foods are made from. The carbs sits around 36% which is on the positive side.

The next two ingredients are in smaller proportions to the first two. These are peas and besan. Peas add protein and fibre and are considered okay to feed in smaller proportions. Besan (chickpea flour) is higher in protein, and combined with peas offers a decent mix of vitamins and minerals.

Instinctive Bite Dog Food Review

As we get to the lower half of the ingredients we find a decent mix of oils, vitamins, minerals, veggies (in small doses), and it’s really nice to see a DHA blend (excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids). Another nice plus point is they haven’t used any unnatural antioxidants or preservatives. Great stuff.

Instinctive Bite has the hallmarks of a decent food. Recommended.

Ingredients

Australian Chicken Meal, Brown Rice, Peas, Besan, Poultry Oil, Poultry Digest, Coconut Oil, Potassium Chloride, Salt, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Choline Chloride, Carrots, Pumpkin Powder, Chicory Root Inulin, DHA Blend, Natural Antioxidants, Yucca Extract,Vitamins (C, E Supplement, B3, B5, Riboflavin, Thiamine Mononitrate, B6, A, Folic Acid, B7, B12 Supplement,D3), Minerals ( Zinc Sulphate, Iron Sulfate Monohydrate, Copper Sulfate, Manganese Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Selenium).

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8.4 Total Score
Well balanced

PROS
  • Good ingredients all round
  • Brown rice as a decent grain

10 Comments
  1. Nearly everything gone from this brand. Lamb is gone, salmon is gone (good)(loads of bad reviews) and the 5kg bags are gone too. It seems to be on it’s last legs, I wonder if it’ll float for much longer or ultimately sink.

    • Yes I’ve been chasing this for weeks! Pet circle and have been less than helpful with letting me know what’s going on! I keep getting the response “I’m not sure what’s going on”… I changed over to Hypro premium lamb and brown rice in the meantime but my dog doesn’t seem as keen on it.. it’s very dry and has a strange texture

      • I’m not sure why they are out of stock but I can still order it from past auto deliveries…
        Tried it and still got my order even though they have been out of stock for awhile now.

  2. I’m concerned that SALT is listed in the ingredients. I’ve never seen salt included in an ingredients list for premium pet food before-only cheap brands. It doesn’t seem to be a small amount either considering it’s 9th on the list.

    • Reply
      Pet Food Reviews (Australia) November 21, 2022 at 8:45 pm

      Hi Vet, salt in most dry dog food formulations sits around the 1% mark. The position salt is on the ingredients list is more a matter of how many “main” ingredients there are. For example, a dog food might have main ingredients of “chicken, potato, chicken fat”, or a whole host of ingredients in lesser amounts.

  3. I’ve been feeding this brand to my 2 GSP’s since they released this brand to the market and am one of their biggest fans. We’ve fed all life stages and flavours (except seafood due to an allergy) and they’ve all been phenomenal.
    My dogs actually do better on the grain based ones, so that’s what we feed now (and it’s cheaper).
    Good food and Aussie.
    We also feed their bone broth too.

    LOVE INSTINCTIVE BITE

  4. Changed to Instinctive bite original lamb 3 years ago after vet advice to avoid grain free and my G Dane loves it. We supplement with a cup home cooked meat and veg casserole/eggs/sardines in rotation. Good food at a great price, grain free varieties if you want them. Poop is usually neat and well formed

  5. My 2 year old groodle who never has issues with his tummy (or eating) did not enjoy this product. After reading some of the reviews I avoided the salmon variety.

    At the start he LOVED it, couldn’t eat it quick enough. But he was waking up in the night and liquid pooping on the carpet which he has never done, even as a puppy. He was terribly farty, which is VERY unlike him. He stopped wanting to eat his food when he has always been a binge eater.

    I noticed he had to start walking to generate his bowel movements in the morning and would think he was done but then more would come out. We tried to see if it was anything else, as we had bought a 15kg bag but had to eventually concede that the food was causing it.

    We went back to his old food and within a day he was back to normal.

    I think it’s just too fatty for him. You can smell how rich it is and there is almost an oily sheen on the biscuits.

  6. I think the issue with the salmon does indeed pertain to “fat”, I think they’ve made it too rich, added too much salmon frames and oil and that’s the cause of the many bad reviews.

    Let me explain, this won’t be a pleasant read haha.

    I buy jerky sausages from the Biltong Man, I don’t buy them online, but from a butcher shop. They cost $9.50 for 100g and are the most awesome things ever.

    Now they say lean meat but their actually quiet fatty, this fat adds a nice flavour, but too much of it causes me wicked foul smelling gas. Sound familiar to the reviews?

    So yeah I reckon that the issue with the salmon pertains to it being too oily and rich and like me with my sausages, dogs get the same symptoms.

    I know they wanted to bring people to their foods with meat/fish percentages, cause you know 70% salmon, sounds amazing. But I think for a fish so rich in oil, they should’ve just done a 40% one. Especially since they still add coconut oil to the food.

    I feel 40% would’ve been the fine line, the best line in fact. But I guess since bad reviews keep piling up and they still haven’t changed anything about it. But bought out new foods instead. That they are not going to change anything about it, not any time soon anyways.

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