Exe Valley Essential Range Puppy: Turkey review

Exe Valley Essential Range Puppy lands in our Good band, where the typical puppy dry food sits too, and within that field it settles just above the midpoint. Transparency is its strongest pillar, reading Outstanding, with protein and processing, nutritional balance and value all reading Good. What separates it from the growth foods above it is the balance of the bowl, with no single failing to point at. A third of the label is turkey meal, and cereals plus potato protein carry more of what follows than the strongest puppy recipes ask.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey Meal (33%), Rice (26%), Barley, Oats, Rapeseed Oil, Linseed (3%), Potato Protein, Turkey Gravy, Beet Pulp, Alfalfa (1%), Minerals, Seaweed (0.5%), Chicory (0.3%).

Turkey meal at 33% is the whole foundation here, and the form matters. The water in a meal is gone well before it reaches the mix. That third of the label survives the oven and reaches the finished kibble at close to the printed figure. Turkey gravy further down adds palatability from the same bird. No other animal is on the list. That is unusual on a kibble at this end of the market.

The starch side is traditional and unapologetic. Rice at 26% leads it, with barley and oats behind. All three are digestible once cooked, and each brings fibre and a spread of micronutrients along. Barley does carry gluten, so a household steering clear of it will want to note that. With moisture assumed at 8%, carbohydrate converts to 41.3% of dry matter against the 39.0% typical of a puppy dry food. The starch load sits just above the middle of the field.

Potato protein deserves a word of its own. Potato processing leaves it behind, and it is used to lift a recipe's protein figure. Plant protein is neither as digestible nor as complete for a growing dog as the protein in meat. It is doing real work on the analysis line here. Keep that in view when you read the 29.0% protein figure on the front.

Fats come from rapeseed oil, one of the better vegetable oils and low in saturated fat, with linseed at 3% adding plant omega 3 for skin, coat and brain. Beet pulp is the gentle, well tolerated fibre here. Chicory at 0.3% adds inulin, a prebiotic that the gut's friendly bacteria feed on. Alfalfa at 1% and seaweed at 0.5% round the list off, the seaweed bringing iodine and a spread of minerals with it.

Calcium is declared and converts to 1.96% of dry matter on that same assumed moisture. That suits a small or medium pup well. Large and giant breed growth plans are usually built lower, and a big breed owner should take this figure to their vet before committing. Energy is our estimate at 354 kcal per 100g, a little under the 376 typical of the puppy dry field, so portions here run slightly larger than a richer kibble would need.

The added panel is fully dosed in print: vitamins A, D3 and E to start. Then zinc at 100 mg, iron at 80 mg, manganese at 50 mg, copper at 14 mg, iodine at 1.4 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg per kilo. Selenium arrives as sodium selenite. That is the standard supplement form across most of the industry, where a handful of makers use the organic version.

Sold in 2kg and 12kg bags, at £3.33 a kilo.

A puppy food has no fixed daily amount. A pup's needs climb steeply through the first months and then level off as growth slows. Take the maker's chart as the starting point and let the shape of the dog in front of you decide the adjustments. As a rough guide from our energy estimate, a 10kg pup between four and twelve months gets through somewhere around 200 to 245 grams a day.