Calibra Life Starter & Puppy review

This lands in our Excellent band, at the lower edge of it and a step above the middle of the puppy dry field. Transparency reads Outstanding. Excellent goes to nutritional balance and to value, Good to protein and processing, which is the honest shape of the thing. The lamb lead and the generous salmon oil are the strengths here. They are balanced by a supporting cast described by family rather than by name, and by an analysis that reads solid without doing anything the category has not seen before.

Ingredients, as declared: lamb protein (38 %), rice (20 %), poultry fat (12 %, preserved with tocopherols), hydrolysed poultry protein (12 %), brewer's rice (7 %), apple pulp dried (3 %), salmon oil (3 %), yeasts, hydrolysed chicken liver (2 %), prebiotics (mannan-oligosaccharides 150 mg/kg, β-glucans 120 mg/kg, fructo-oligosaccharides 100 mg/kg), dried rosemary & thyme (250 mg/kg), Mojave yucca (100 mg/kg), Lactobacillus acidophilus HA - 122 inactivated (15 × 109 cells/kg).

Lamb protein at 38% is dried. Its water has already gone, and most of the declared share survives into the kibble. Protein converts to 35.2% of dry matter, a strong reading for a growth food, though a chunk of that total is coming from the hydrolysed poultry protein rather than from the lamb alone.

That hydrolysed poultry protein at 12% is a big inclusion by the standards of the category. Hydrolysis breaks protein down into short fragments, very easy to digest and extremely palatable. It is exactly the kind of ingredient you would expect in a recipe pitched at the starter end of puppyhood. It is also a poultry entry that names no bird, so it cuts both ways.

The binding is done by rice at 20% and brewer's rice at 7%. Estimated carbohydrate settles at 33.5% of dry matter, on the lighter side of what a kibble usually runs. Dried apple pulp at 3% adds a soft fibre and the yeasts contribute to the prebiotic side of the recipe.

Salmon oil at 3% is the entry to note. Most dry foods use a fraction of that, and it puts a proper marine omega 3 source behind a growing coat and nervous system, with poultry fat at 12% carrying the bulk of the energy. Together they take fat to 19.8% of dry matter and energy to 393 kcal per 100g.

Calcium converts to 1.65% of dry matter with ash at 8.4%, a mineral rich recipe designed to build frame. Every size from toy to giant is on the bag, and that is where the honest caveat belongs. Rearing a big pup, though, means a tighter calcium level than this one. It is not a reason to rule the food out for a big pup. It is a reason to set the portions with your vet and keep that pup lean while the skeleton is going up.

The finishing entries are all dosed on the label: mannan-oligosaccharides at 150 mg/kg, beta glucans at 120 mg/kg and fructo-oligosaccharides at 100 mg/kg. Then come an inactivated Lactobacillus acidophilus culture, dried rosemary and thyme at 250 mg/kg and Mojave yucca at 100 mg/kg. The vitamin and trace mineral table is fully printed too, with the minerals in organic form.

£4.45 a kilo, sold in 100g, 750g, 2.5kg and 12kg bags.

From our standard energy estimate, a 10kg pup aged between four and twelve months gets through roughly 180 to 220 grams a day. Growth does not run at one rate, so that figure climbs while your pup is building and drops back once they are not, and the chart on the bag will always beat a fixed scoop.