Brit Care Dog Sustainable Puppy review

Our Excellent band holds this food, and it holds it comfortably, with the typical puppy dry food a band lower in Good. Fat, energy and a starch share below the puppy average are the numbers doing that work.

Nutritional balance and value both read Excellent, transparency reads Outstanding and protein and processing Good, so nothing here is being propped up by a single figure. What stands out instead is a growth recipe keeping carbohydrate to 36.2% of dry matter where 39.0% is typical, with room left over for the insect protein the range is named for.

Ingredients, as declared: chicken (40%) (dehydrated chicken, hydrolysed chicken), oats (26%), dehydrated insect (14%), chicken fat, dried apple pulp, natural flavour, brewer's yeast, salmon oil (2%), hydrolysed yeast (0.5% - a source of inositol and amino acids), pea flour, glucosamine (300 mg/kg), fructo-oligosaccharides (230 mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (230 mg/kg), mannan-oligosaccharides (180 mg/kg), Mojave yucca (180 mg/kg), milk thistle seed (110 mg/kg), β-glucans (60 mg/kg), dried motherwort (60 mg/kg), dried sea buckthorn (60 mg/kg), Lactobacillus helveticus HA - 122 inactivated (15x109 cells/kg).

Chicken at 40% arrives dehydrated and hydrolysed. There is no water left in the dried form, so what the bag holds is close to the printed share. The hydrolysed part is chicken protein broken into small fragments that absorb easily, and a puppy will not walk away from it. Protein converts to 34.4% of dry matter and fat to 21.1%, a properly meaty analysis for a growth food.

Dehydrated insect at 14% is what makes this recipe unusual. It is a complete animal protein carrying the amino acids a growing dog needs, produced on a small fraction of the land and water conventional meat requires. Most pups will never have eaten it, and most take to it without a second thought.

Oats at 26% carry the starch, cooked soft so they digest easily, with dried apple pulp behind them for gentle fibre. Crude fibre is light at 1.5%, so this is not a bulky food, and carbohydrate comes out at 32.6% as fed, or 36.2% of dry matter, under the 39.0% typical for a puppy dry food.

Calcium is printed and converts to 1.56% of dry matter, inside the range growth needs, which is what makes the toy through to giant labelling credible rather than optimistic. Ash sits at 5.9%, so the mineral content is not being bulked out to get there.

Every functional ingredient names its dose. Glucosamine leads at 300 mg/kg with chondroitin sulphate at 230 mg/kg. Fructo-oligosaccharides match the chondroitin at 230 mg/kg, and mannan-oligosaccharides at 180 mg/kg look after the gut. Mojave yucca and milk thistle seed follow at their own printed levels. So do motherwort and sea buckthorn, and the beta-glucans with them. An inactivated Lactobacillus helveticus culture sits at the end.

Salmon oil at 2% covers the marine fats a young coat and nervous system draw on, and the added panel includes taurine, L-carnitine and L-tryptophan alongside organic zinc, manganese, copper and iron.

£5.00 a kilo, in 1kg, 3kg and 12kg bags.

Growth rewrites the portion every few weeks, so start from the weight band on the chart and let your pup's shape do the fine tuning.