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Duck Recipe Paté

Wet food · adult cats

A duck-first wet food from Dr. Elsey's, denser per can than 66% of the wet cat foods we've verified. Cat-food pricing isn't in our corpus for this SKU yet, so cost-per-day isn't shown — the composition numbers below are fully verified.

THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — data as JSON · reference cat 10 lb · updated 2026-07-12

$59.99 as of 2026-07-12 Check price →
Your catupdates every number on this page
10 lb

Joint, kidney, dental or heart concerns? Labels can't honestly answer those — that's vet territory. Why we don't checkmark them →

The evidence

The Verified Label

Every food on this site gets this exact panel — same fields, same order, sourced from the official label — so brands finally become comparable. Dots show where this food sits among all 732 wet cat foods we've verified.

Verified LabelThe standardized pet-food panel
VPFD № DR-ELS
verified 2026-07-12

Composition — dry-matter basis

why dry matter
Moisture hides the real recipe: dry food is ~5-10% water, wet food ~75-82%. Removing water puts every food on one scale, so these are the only nutrition numbers that can be compared across foods. As-fed label values shown small.
Protein 36.4%label: 8% min lower than 97% of wet cat foods
Fat 31.8%label: 7% min no corpus anchor for fat yet
Fiber 6.8%label: 1.5% max no corpus anchor for wet-food fiber yet
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈11.4%diabetic-check target <10% higher than 71% of wet cat foods
Magnesium as fed: not yet verified
why 0.12% DM
A commonly cited veterinary target for helping manage struvite-crystal (urinary) risk in cats is magnesium under roughly 0.12% on a dry-matter basis. This is a general, label-checkable guideline — not a diagnosis, and not a substitute for your vet, especially for cats with a history of urinary issues.
 Not yet verifiedmagnesium no threshold to check — magnesium not in our verified record
Ash 8% assumed — not disclosed on label 3%as used in carb estimate no corpus anchor for ash yet

Calories & cost — for your 10-lb adult cat

Calorie density 88.9 kcal/can— kcal/kg denser than 66% of wet cat foods (median 74)
Daily serving3 cans
Cost per day—
Bag lasts—

Cost per 1,000 kcal not available yet — this cat food isn't price-matched to a retail listing in our corpus yet. Serving math uses standard veterinary energy formulas — see the formula.

Standards & ingredients

AAFCO statement
what this means
Two kinds of AAFCO claims exist. Most foods are only "formulated to meet" nutrient profiles — a paper calculation. A smaller set carry the stronger claim: fed to real cats in AAFCO-procedure trials ("Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate…").
 Not yet verified from label
First five ingredients (by pre-cooking weight)Duck · Duck Broth · Dried Egg Product · Pork Liver · Natural Duck Flavor
Named animal protein first; named meals onlyYes
Legumes in first 10 (FDA DCM inquiry)None
BHA / BHT preservativesNone on label
Carrageenan (thickener)None
Ethoxyquin
why unknown
When a fish-meal supplier adds ethoxyquin, U.S. rules don't require it on the finished label — so no label can prove its absence for recipes containing fish meal. We report this as a gap rather than guessing.
 None — no fish meal in this recipe

Safety

FDA recalls — Dr. Elsey's, since 2023None on record
ManufacturerNot confirmed from label
Label transparency 5 of 15 standard fields
Green = verified favorable · amber = gap in the record · red = verified unfavorable · gray = not disclosed / neutral fact.
Source: official label source (official) · anchors: 732 verified wet cat foods · how to read this label

The fit

For your cat, specifically

Checked for a 10-lb adult cat with urinary health + a low-carb goal — the same published criteria our finder uses. Change your cat above and these update.

·
Life-stage coverage not disclosedNo AAFCO nutrient-adequacy statement was found on the label for this SKU, so we cannot confirm adult-maintenance coverage.
·
Urinary fit — can't assessMagnesium is not disclosed on this label, so the urinary/struvite check cannot be run — most cat food labels omit it entirely (only a small share of the cat foods we've verified disclose magnesium at all).
·
Fiber 6.8% DMNot selected as a concern for your cat — shown here for reference.
·
Sensitive stomachNot selected for your cat — but shown here for reference.
·
Chicken-free recipeNot selected for your cat — but relevant if chicken sensitivity ever comes up.
✕
Too many estimated carbs for a low-carb target≈11.4% carbohydrate (dry-matter, estimated) is over the ~10% DM target some vets use for diabetic/low-carb cats. Estimate only — not a lab measurement. See lower-carb options →

The source material

The full ingredient list

Every flag on the Verified Label is computed from this list. Ingredients are ordered by pre-cooking weight — the first five carry the most information.

Duck, Duck Broth, Dried Egg Product, Pork Liver, Natural Duck Flavor, Agar-Agar, Salmon Oil (Preserved With Mixed Tocopherols), Brewers Dried Yeast, Calcium Carbonate, Tricalcium Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Taurine, Magnesium Proteinate, New Zealand Green Lipped Mussel, Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin Supplement, Manganese Proteinate, Sodium Selenite, Thiamine Mononitrate, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin A Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Biotin, Folic Acid, Ethylenediamine Dihydroiodide, Vitamin D3 Supplement

Nutritional twins

Priced close matches

This food has no verified price yet — these are the closest label matches that do.

Blue Buffalo BLUE Natural Veterinary Diet Wet Cat Food NP Novel Protein Alligator
38.6% protein (DM)$19.48 / 1,000 kcal

Label-composition matches only: same species, form, and growth stage; same primary protein where both are known; grain-free preserved; protein within 4 points and fat within 4 points, and estimated carbs within 8 points, on a dry-matter basis. Not a medical or quality recommendation.

The maker

Who makes this — and how they back it up

The four questions the WSAVA nutrition guidelines tell you to ask a pet-food company. Every answer is sourced or marked as an undisclosed gap — never guessed. This is the "is it made competently?" axis that star-rating sites skip.

Owns its manufacturing Undisclosed

Where the FOOD is made is not company-confirmed (the Cheyenne WY plant is primarily litter); owned-vs-co-packer undetermined — left undisclosed rather than asserted.

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Undisclosed

Founder Dr. Bruce Elsey is a feline-only veterinarian (DVM) — NOT a board-certified veterinary nutritionist; no named DACVN/PhD found; null per rule.

source →
AAFCO feeding trials Undisclosed

No feeding-trial AAFCO statement found on the 30 labels we’ve verified for this brand, and no company-wide claim was found either. Most pet foods are only "formulated to meet" AAFCO profiles (a paper calculation) rather than fed to real animals in trials — this is common, not necessarily a red flag.

Peer-reviewed research None found

A reproducible PubMed search (author-affiliation field, animal/pet-domain filtered) returns zero indexed papers for this brand name. Not proof no research exists — only that none is PubMed-indexed under this exact name.

source →
Parent company Precious Cat, Inc. (founder-owned; no larger parent) ↗ Founded 1987 ↗ Headquarters / plant Englewood, Colorado, USA ↗ FDA recalls on record None on record

Full company scorecard, sources, and every SKU we've verified for this brand: Dr. Elsey's brand page →