Concept For Life Medium Breed Junior review

Concept For Life Medium Breed Junior sits in our Good band, level with the middle of the puppy dry field. Nutritional balance and transparency both read Good with protein and processing at Average, a level showing with no single weak spot dragging on the rest.

The shape of the recipe explains the position. The energy and mineral side is put together with care and declared in detail. Against that, the meat headline names a bird family and no single bird, and the cereals take a bigger share of the bowl than the front of the pack suggests. Moisture and calcium, the two figures a growth food is judged hardest on, are simply absent.

Ingredients, as declared: 30% Poultry Protein (Rich in Chicken, Partly Dried and Hydrolysed), 20% Fresh Chicken Meat, Rice, Maize, Poultry Fat, Dried Beet Pulp (Desugared), Linseed, Lignocellulose, Brewer's Yeast (Dried), Egg (Dried), Sodium Chloride, 0.4% Salmon Oil, 0.3% Sunflower Oil, 0.2% Yeast Extract (Rich in Beta-Glucans and Mannan-Oligosaccharides), 0.1% Chicory Inulin, 0.1% Aronia Extract (Dried, Rich in Polyphenols), 0.04% Glucosamine, 0.02% Chondroitin Sulphate, 0.02% Extracts from Hops and Green Tea (Dried, Rich in Flavonoids), Antioxidants.

The meat arrives in two forms. The poultry protein at 30% is partly dried and partly hydrolysed. Some of its water has already gone, and some of its protein has been broken into smaller pieces that a young gut handles easily. Against a fresh figure of the same size, it puts more into the finished kibble. The fresh chicken meat at 20% behind it is the part you can name with confidence.

The word poultry names a category, though, and not a species. Chicken is called out as the main bird, but the wording cannot rule out duck, goose or turkey. That is the practical limit of this label for a dog whose triggers you are still working out.

The starch comes from rice and maize, with fibre handled by desugared beet pulp and lignocellulose. Carbohydrate works out at 38.5% of dry matter once an 8% moisture is assumed, since the label does not print one. That is almost exactly the 39.0% of the typical puppy dry food, so the cereals sit at the ordinary level for this kind of kibble. Lignocellulose is purified fibre in powder form, and it does not come from whole plants. Bulk is its whole job.

Fats are generous and partly named. The analysis declares 18.0% fat, and poultry fat provides most of it. Salmon oil at 0.4% and sunflower oil at 0.3% top it up with the omega fatty acids that a growing coat and brain use. At 402 kcal per 100g this is an energy dense food, which suits a junior with places to be.

It is at the end of the list that the thinking shows. Yeast extract at 0.2% carries beta-glucans and mannan-oligosaccharides, chicory inulin at 0.1% adds a prebiotic fibre, and aronia extract at 0.1% brings polyphenols. Glucosamine at 0.04% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.02% read as a nod towards cartilage, short of a working joint dose, while dried egg and brewer's yeast lift protein quality and B vitamins.

The vitamin and trace element panel is fully dosed. Vitamin E sits at 400 mg/kg, vitamin C at 200 mg/kg, choline chloride at 3000 mg/kg, zinc at 100 mg/kg from two separate sources and iron at 250 mg/kg. What the label withholds is moisture and calcium. Every dry matter reading above therefore rests on an assumed 8% moisture, and with calcium undeclared, the number that governs skeletal growth is the one you cannot see.

Sold in 1.5kg, 6kg and 12kg bags.

A junior's needs shift as the growth curve flattens, so no fixed daily amount fits this stage. Work from the chart on the pack and from your hands on your dog's ribs. As a guide, our standard energy estimate puts a 10kg pup of four to twelve months at roughly 176g to 215g a day.