Skinner's Field & Trial Puppy review

Our Good band is where this puppy bag finishes, keeping level with the middle of the puppy dry field. Protein and processing reads Average, nutritional balance Good and transparency Excellent.

What lifts it is the straightforwardness of the whole thing. The meat meal names its bird, the extras name their quantities, and the declared analysis is dense enough to raise a busy puppy on sensible portions. The gap, and it is a real one on a growth food, is calcium, which appears nowhere on the label.

Ingredients, as declared: Poultry meat meal (min. 95% chicken) 30%, Maize, Brown rice, Poultry fat, Naked oats, Prairie meal, Beet pulp, Sunflower meal, Whole linseed, Dried egg, Vitamins & minerals, Brewer's yeast, Cellulose, Marine algae meal, MOS 2500mg/kg, FOS 1000mg/kg, Herb blend 750mg/kg, Glucosamine 250mg/kg, Chondroitin sulphate 150mg/kg, Seaweed 150mg/kg, Yucca 100mg/kg

Poultry meat meal at 30% is the meat content and the label declares it as at least 95% chicken, which is more openness than the generic term usually comes with. It is a rendered dry powder, so the water went before the weighing. So the 30% printed on the bag is much the same 30% your dog eats. Protein is declared at 27.0%, which converts to 29.3% of dry matter.

Maize, brown rice and naked oats build the base, with prairie meal and sunflower meal behind them. Against a puppy dry average of 39.0%, the estimated carbohydrate here works out at 40.2% of dry matter. The starch load is an ordinary one for the category. Beet pulp brings the gentle fibre, and cellulose sits alongside it as a processed plant fibre, an entry that bulks the diet without adding much of anything else.

Poultry fat drives the energy, and it is why fat comes in at 18.0%, converting to 19.6% of dry matter, with 386 kcal per 100g declared rather than estimated. That combination suits a puppy in constant motion; a laid back one simply needs the scoop levelled off. Whole linseed adds plant omega 3 and marine algae meal adds the marine kind without putting fish on the label, while dried egg and brewer's yeast round out the protein and the B vitamin side.

The supplement tail carries real numbers. The prebiotics are MOS at 2500mg/kg and FOS at 1000mg/kg, and the large intestine's good bacteria feed on the pair. Joint support starts young here too, with glucosamine at 250mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 150mg/kg. Seaweed at 150mg/kg and yucca at 100mg/kg close the run, with the herb blend at 750mg/kg the only entry that keeps its contents general.

The added panel is quantified throughout: vitamin A at 13000iu, vitamin D3 at 2000iu, vitamin E at 350mg and taurine at 100mg per kilogram. The trace elements come in two forms apiece, an inorganic salt or oxide plus a more absorbable protein hydrolysate chelate. Iron comes at 26.7mg and 13.3mg, manganese at 16.7mg and 8.3mg, zinc at 100mg and 30mg, copper at 3.3mg and 1.7mg, with iodine at 1.5mg and organic selenium at 0.1mg. Clinoptilolite clay is listed at 3000mg as a technological additive.

Calcium is the one figure a growth label is really asked for, and this one prints none. The rest of the analysis is there, with ash declared at 7.0% and crude fibre at 3.0%. If you are raising a big breed pup, a quick word with Skinner's will get you the calcium figure.

£3.35 a kilo, sold in 2.5kg and 15kg bags.

A growing pup's portion keeps moving, so treat these as a starting point from our own energy estimate. A 10kg pup between 4 and 12 months old lands somewhere around 184 to 224 grams a day, and a 20kg pup of the same age nearer 309 to 377 grams. Move those figures with the growth chart and with how easily your pup's ribs can be felt.