Brit Premium by Nature Junior M review

Our Excellent band takes this food, a rung above where the typical puppy dry food settles, and it clears that mark rather than merely matching it. A 50% dried chicken lead does most of the persuading.

Transparency reads Outstanding, value and nutritional balance Excellent and protein and processing Good. The cereal blend behind the meat is what keeps it from climbing further, since wheat and corn are workhorse ingredients with no showpiece about them. They still sit behind a substantial meat share, not in front of it.

Ingredients, as declared: chicken dehydrated (50%), oats, wheat, chicken fat, corn, salmon oil (2%), dried apple pulp, hydrolyzed chicken liver, brewer´s yeast, collagen, glucosamine(260 mg/kg), chondroitine sulphate (180 mg/kg), mannan-oligosaccharides (150 mg/kg), fructo-oligosaccharides (100 mg/kg), Mojave yucca (100 mg/kg), dried chamomile (90 mg/kg), glycosaminoglycans, 60 mg/kg), dried blueberries (60 mg/kg), dried cloves (40 mg/kg), dried citrus (40 mg/kg), dried rosemary (40 mg/kg), dried curcuma (40 mg/kg).

The list opens with dehydrated chicken at 50%, and that is a strong start. The water is out of it already. A fresh chicken percentage would shrink in the oven, but this share largely survives into the finished kibble, and protein converting to 34.4% of dry matter says the same. Chicken is the most digestible everyday meat for most dogs, though it is also the one dogs most often turn out to react to, simply because they meet so much of it.

The starch comes from oats, wheat and corn together. Oats are the pick of the three, soft once cooked and bringing fibre with them, while wheat and corn are workaday cereals that most dogs handle without a second thought and a minority do not. That is worth knowing before you choose them for a pup with a history of itching or unsettled stools. Carbohydrate lands at 32.2% as fed, or 35.8% of dry matter, under the 39.0% typical of a puppy dry food.

Calcium is printed and converts to 1.56% of dry matter, inside the range a growing skeleton needs, and ash at 6.8% is unremarkable in the best sense. For a medium breed pup that is exactly the mineral picture you want on the panel.

Hydrolysed chicken liver and collagen give the recipe its character below the meat line. The liver is there for palatability, broken down small so it coats the kibble and gets a distracted pup eating. Collagen is a connective tissue protein, and it fits the joint theme the supplement list goes on to carry.

That joint theme is dosed rather than merely named: glucosamine at 260 mg/kg, chondroitin sulphate at 180 mg/kg and glycosaminoglycans at 60 mg/kg. Gut support comes from mannan-oligosaccharides at 150 mg/kg and fructo-oligosaccharides at 100 mg/kg. Dried chamomile at 90 mg/kg and blueberries at 60 mg/kg follow. Cloves, citrus, rosemary and curcuma each sit at 40 mg/kg, closing the list at trace level.

Salmon oil at 2% is the marine fat, chicken fat carries the energy, and the food runs to 398 kcal per 100g. Biotin and choline chloride join vitamins A, D3 and E on the added panel, then zinc, iron, manganese, copper, iodine and selenium. Some growth foods print a longer vitamin list.

£4.40 a kilo, in 1kg, 3kg and 15kg bags.

Feed a puppy from the growth chart, not from habit. When your pup moves up a weight band, read the chart again and work from there.