Calibra Verve Junior Small Breed review

We read this bag as Excellent, which puts it above the middle of the puppy dry field by one band. The strength is spread evenly: transparency Outstanding, value in Excellent with the overall, and the other two pillars Good. The recipe itself is likeable, with two birds named, no cereal at all and a fruit and vegetable list that goes beyond decoration.

What holds the placing down is how much of the front of the bag survives the process. The fresh chicken headline gives up most of its weight as water, the poultry fat and the hydrolysed protein stop short of naming their species, and the analysis reads solid rather than striking. It is a sound grain free growth bag whose label leaves a little on the table.

Ingredients, as declared: fresh deboned chicken (30 %), duck protein (26 %), poultry fat, potatoes (10 %), hydrolysed poultry protein (8 %), pumpkin (4 %), peas (3 %), hydrolysed chicken liver (2 %), salmon oil (2 %), apple pulp dried (2 %), yeasts, chicory root powder (0.2 %), pineapple dried (0.1 %), prebiotics (mannan-oligosaccharides 150 mg/kg, β-glucans 120 mg/kg, fructo-oligosaccharides 100 mg/kg), Mojave yucca (100 mg/kg), sea buckthorn dried (100 mg/kg).

The meat is a pairing rather than a single lead. Fresh deboned chicken at 30% is weighed before cooking, so most of that figure is water that leaves during processing. Duck protein at 26% is a dried meat and carries into the finished kibble roughly as declared. Read together, the dried duck is doing at least as much of the protein work as the fresh chicken in front of it, and protein converts to 33.3% of dry matter overall.

The starch side is genuinely grain free. Potatoes at 10%, pumpkin at 4% and peas at 3% are the carriers, and the estimated carbohydrate lands at 35.0% of dry matter, under the 39.0% usual for the category. Pumpkin is a nice touch in a puppy food, soft, gently fibrous and easy on a young gut, and peas add a little plant protein alongside their starch.

Poultry fat carries the energy with salmon oil at 2% supplying the marine omega 3s, taking fat to 20.0% of dry matter and energy to 389 kcal per 100g. Neither the fat nor the hydrolysed poultry protein at 8% says which bird it came from, which is the label's main omission given how carefully the two headline meats are named.

Calcium converts to 1.67% of dry matter and ash to 8.9%, a mineral rich reading that small breed bone will use well. Large and giant breed growth is planned to a lower figure than that, so this one belongs to the size on the front of the bag. That is exactly the size the recipe is sold for.

The fruit and botanical entries are more interesting than most. Dried apple pulp at 2% and chicory root powder at 0.2% work on fibre and gut flora. Dried pineapple at 0.1% and dried sea buckthorn at 100 mg/kg round out the plant side. Mannan-oligosaccharides come in at 150 mg/kg, beta glucans at 120 mg/kg and fructo-oligosaccharides at 100 mg/kg, each printed on the label. Mojave yucca at 100 mg/kg closes the list. All of it is small scale, but it is named and numbered, which is more than most bags manage at the bottom of the ingredient list.

Hydrolysed chicken liver at 2% does the palatant's job. With the fresh chicken above it and the anonymous poultry entries below, this is a recipe with chicken running through it from top to bottom. For a pup who simply likes bird that is all to the good, and only an owner working through a true elimination diet needs to sit down with the whole list.

£6.20 a kilo, sold in 1.2kg and 6kg bags.

A 5kg pup aged four to twelve months eats somewhere around 108 to 132 grams a day, on our standard energy estimate. Small breeds finish growing sooner than most, so expect that figure to rise for a spell and then need trimming. Let the growth chart on the bag set the amount, and never a scoop that stays the same.