Opti Life Prime Puppy review

Prime Puppy comes to rest in our Average band, a step under the Good band where the middle of the puppy dry field sits. Nutritional balance reads Outstanding, with transparency Good and protein and processing Poor, so one leg is carrying rather more than the others. The lift comes from the dried meat share and the unusually light starch load, while the run of animal entries that name no species is what stops it climbing further.

Ingredients, as declared: chicken (dehydrated 45%), potato (15%), peas, animal fat, linseed, vegetable fibres (cellulose 3%), hydrolysed animal proteins, minerals, brewer's yeast, salmon oil, krill (0.5%), FOS (0.5%), psyllium (0.5%), dried whole eggs, MOS (0.1%), sea algae (Ascophyllum nodosum), salts of fatty acids (butyric acid), glucosamine 500 mg/kg, rosemary (18 mg/kg), turmeric, green tea (12 mg/kg).

The top line is all dehydrated chicken at 45%, and the form matters as much as the figure. The water left the dried meat before mixing, so that share travels into the finished kibble roughly as printed. That is not something a fresh meat headline can claim. The analysis agrees with it: 38.0% protein as fed becomes 41.8% of dry matter.

The binding is done by potato at 15% and by peas behind it, and no cereal appears anywhere. Carbohydrate converts to 23.6% of dry matter where a typical puppy dry food runs at 39.0%, so the starch load is genuinely light for a kibble. Moisture is declared at 9.0%, so these conversions come off a printed number rather than an assumption.

On a growth food the calcium line is the one to find first, and here it converts to 1.43% of dry matter, comfortably within the window a developing skeleton should be reared to. The maker offers this recipe from toy all the way to giant, and a figure in that range is what makes the giant end of the claim believable.

Fibre is declared as vegetable fibres with cellulose named inside it at 3%. Cellulose is a purified fibre and does not arrive attached to a whole vegetable, so it bulks and regulates without bringing much else along. Psyllium at 0.5% works the same job from the soluble side, and the salts of fatty acids are given as butyric acid, the short chain fat that gut lining cells burn for fuel.

FOS at 0.5% and MOS at 0.1% make up the prebiotic pairing, krill at 0.5% adds marine trace nutrients and dried whole eggs bring a protein that pups digest easily. The tail runs to turmeric, rosemary at 18 mg/kg and green tea at 12 mg/kg, all seasoning-level entries that will not change the shape of the bowl.

The soft spot is what the label declines to name. Animal fat and hydrolysed animal proteins could come from any species, and with krill and salmon oil also present the recipe reads as chicken-led rather than chicken-only. For a pup with a preference that is a non-issue; for one on a strict exclusion diet it is the detail that decides matters.

The added vitamin and mineral panel is fully dosed, from vitamin A at 26400 IU and vitamin D3 at 1440 IU down to selenium at 0.2 mg. Glucosamine at 500 mg/kg is written into the recipe itself. Energy is estimated at 378 kcal per 100g, close to the 376 typical for a puppy dry food.

£4.54 a kilo, with a smaller everyday bag and a bulk bag listed.

A puppy's portion keeps moving, up through the early months and back again as growth slows. Feed to the chart on the pack, which sets its amounts by the adult weight your pup should reach. Then adjust by how they are covering over the ribs.