Ci Foods Ci Puppy Power: Chicken & Rice review

Our Good band is where this one lands, the same band the middle of the puppy dry field occupies. Transparency comes back Outstanding. Nutritional balance and value read Good, with protein and processing at Average. Naming the chicken in three forms with their shares, printing a dose against every functional extra and declaring a calcium figure that works for growth are what earn the position. The cereal base and the carbohydrate that comes with it are what stop it climbing further.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 38% (Including Dried Chicken 31%, Chicken Fat 5% & Chicken Gravy 2%) Rice (18%), Maize, Oats, Beet Pulp (5%), Dried Fish, Vegetable Stock, Freshly Prepared Free Range Egg, Brewer's Yeast, Linseed, Minerals, Vitamins, Omega 3 supplement, MOS (530 mg/kg), FOS (530 mg/kg), Yucca Extract (240 mg/kg), Glucosamine (90 mg/kg), Methylsulfonylmethane (90 mg/kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (60 mg/kg)

Chicken is declared at 38% and then broken out, which is the sort of detail that makes a label easy to trust: dried chicken at 31%, chicken fat at 5% and chicken gravy at 2%. Dried chicken has already lost its water, so that 31% carries into the finished kibble very much as printed. It is why protein reaches 28.0%, or 30.4% of dry matter, on a recipe with a fair amount of cereal in it.

Rice at 18% heads the carbohydrate side with maize and oats behind, and beet pulp at 5% supplies the fibre. Carbohydrate converts to 44.0% of dry matter where the typical puppy kibble sits at 39.0%, so this is a starchier bowl than a grain-free recipe would be. What you get in exchange is the steady, easily digested energy cereals give a young dog, and rice in particular is among the gentlest of them.

Dried fish turns up halfway down the list, and it is the only entry that leaves its species out. It is there for the marine omega 3, backed up by the separate omega 3 supplement and by linseed. A household running a genuine exclusion diet needs to know that it is fish without being told which fish.

Freshly prepared free range egg and brewer's yeast follow, and neither is filler. Yeast carries the B vitamins better than most natural sources do, and egg is about as digestible as protein gets. Both are doing real work in a growth recipe.

Calcium converts to 1.3% of dry matter, declared and inside the range growth needs, with ash at 8.2% of dry matter around it. Calcium is the one number a puppy food really has to get right, and having it printed and in range takes a good deal of guesswork out of the first months.

The functional tail is dosed throughout. Mannan-oligosaccharides and fructo-oligosaccharides come in at 530 mg/kg each for the gut, and glucosamine and methylsulfonylmethane at 90 mg/kg each with chondroitin sulphate at 60 mg/kg for the joints. Yucca extract at 240 mg/kg is included to take the edge off what the garden smells like. L-Carnitine at 100 mg/kg is in the added panel too, a nutrient involved in turning fat into usable energy.

£3.42 a kilo, sold as a 2kg bag, a case of four 2kg bags or a 12kg sack.

Feeding a puppy means revisiting the scoop rather than setting it once, so start from the guide on the bag for your pup's weight now and move with them as the weeks pass.