Calibra Verve Adult Small Breed: Chicken & Duck review

The two versions all but tie in our scoring. Both reach our Excellent band, a step clear of the Good band the typical adult dry food occupies, with transparency reading Outstanding on each label and the other three pillars reading Good. The recipes are near twins on paper, so the gap traces to the finer grain of the analysis and declarations rather than to any obvious flaw in the poultry version. If the banding matters most to you, the fish version is the stronger pick; if your dog is a poultry devotee, the chicken and duck remains a perfectly sound everyday food.

Ingredients, as declared: fresh deboned chicken (30 %), duck protein (26 %), potatoes (12 %), poultry fat, hydrolysed poultry protein (6 %), pumpkin (4 %), peas (4 %), apple pulp dried (2 %), yeasts, hydrolysed chicken liver (2 %), salmon oil (2 %), rosehips dried (0.2 %), pineapple dried (0.1 %), chicory root powder (0.1 %), prebiotics (mannan-oligosaccharides 150 mg/kg, β-glucans 120 mg/kg, fructo-oligosaccharides 100 mg/kg), Mojave yucca (100 mg/kg).

Both versions follow the Verve blueprint of one fresh meat plus one dried concentrate. The chicken and duck pairs fresh deboned chicken at 30% with duck protein at 26%; the salmon and herring leads with herring protein at 32% over fresh deboned salmon at 30%. Either way the dried ingredient keeps its weight through cooking, so the finished kibble stays genuinely meat led.

Potatoes at 12% carry the starch in both, with pumpkin at 4%, peas at 4% and dried apple pulp at 2% behind, and no grain anywhere. Estimated carbohydrate comes out at 36.1% of dry matter for the chicken and duck and 39.4% for the salmon and herring, both under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Salmon oil at 2% and hydrolysed chicken liver at 2% appear in both versions, along with poultry fat that names no species, and the chicken and duck adds hydrolysed poultry protein at 6%. Flavour and fats are well looked after; strict single-animal feeding is simply not what these labels offer.

Mannan-oligosaccharides at 150 mg/kg, beta-glucans at 120 mg/kg and fructo-oligosaccharides at 100 mg/kg give the prebiotics printed doses. The trace minerals are all organic chelated forms, with a full vitamin suite behind them. The joint supplements found elsewhere in Verve are absent here, with only Mojave yucca at 100 mg/kg surviving from that part of the tail.

Fresh deboned chicken at 30% with duck protein at 26% and hydrolysed poultry protein at 6%, plus rosehips and chicory root at trace levels. The higher protein declaration of the pair at 30.0% as fed, and it reaches our Excellent band with transparency reading Outstanding.

Per kilo, the chicken and duck works out at £7.25 and the salmon and herring at £6.89. The chicken and duck comes in 100g, 1.2kg and 6kg sizes, the salmon and herring in 1.2kg and 6kg.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would need about 225 grams a day of the chicken and duck or 222 grams of the salmon and herring. That assumes around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), and it works out at £1.63 and £1.53 a day. Genuinely small portions are far smaller: the label suggests 80 grams a day for a 5kg dog on either version.