Skinner's Field & Trial Puppy & Junior: Duck & Rice review

Both recipes finish in our Good band, level with where the puppy dry field averages out. Transparency reads Outstanding on both bags and value Good, with protein and processing Average on each. Nutritional balance splits, Good for the duck and Average for the lamb.

The reason is the balance of the bags rather than any single fault. Meat shares are modest for a growth food, and the cereal base carries more of each recipe than the meat does. Neither label declares calcium, the figure a puppy owner most wants to see. What both do well, and what plenty of bags aimed at this stage of life still do not, is print a quantity beside every supplement they name.

Ingredients, as declared: Duck meat meal 28.1%, Brown rice 28%, Naked oats, Peas, Poultry fat, Whole linseed, Beet pulp, Vitamins & minerals, Brewer's yeast, Dicalcium phosphate, 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

Meat arrives as a meal in both, that dry rendered powder kibble making has leaned on for decades. The water is gone before the mixing, so the printed share carries into the finished kibble much as stated. That flatters neither bag, but it does let you read the numbers straight. Duck meat meal at 28.1% on one recipe against lamb meat meal at 15.5% on the other is a real gap rather than a labelling quirk.

Rice is the common thread. The duck recipe uses brown rice at 28%, sitting just behind its meat, while the lamb recipe puts brown rice at 39.3% at the very front of the list. Naked oats follow in both. Against a 39.0% average for the puppy dry field, the duck recipe estimates at 40.7% of dry matter and the lamb at 48.2%. So the base does a full share of the work in one and the greater part of it in the other.

Plant proteins fill in behind the meat on both. Peas appear in the duck recipe and pea protein sits high in the lamb one, with sunflower meal and dried egg behind it. Refined plant proteins lift a declared protein total without matching meat for quality or digestibility, so they are best read as support. Their position in the lamb list is the honest signal of how that recipe is built.

The added energy carrier in both is poultry fat, and it names no species at all. That entry is the one to note when a formal exclusion trial is planned. Plant omega 3 comes from whole linseed, and marine algae meal covers the marine forms with no fish on the label. Beet pulp adds gentle fibre next to the cellulose.

Calcium is the missing line on both packs. The duck recipe does carry dicalcium phosphate, a mineral family added as a source of calcium and phosphorus and the main constituent of bone. The intent is clear enough, though no figure for either mineral is printed on either label. That matters far less for a small or medium pup than for a large or giant one. If you have a big breed on your hands, ask Skinner's for the number.

The two bags share one supplement tail, and every entry on it comes with a dose. The prebiotic pair is MOS at 2500mg/kg with FOS at 1000mg/kg, working on the gut flora of the large intestine. Glucosamine at 250mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 150mg/kg get joint support going early. Seaweed at 150mg/kg and yucca at 100mg/kg close the run. Vitamin A comes at 13000iu, vitamin D3 at 2000iu, vitamin E at 350mg and taurine at 100mg per kilogram. Each trace element is given twice over, as an oxide or sulphate and again as a protein hydrolysate chelate, the more absorbable of the two, down to organic selenium at 0.1mg. Brewer's yeast supplies natural B vitamins, and a clinoptilolite clay at 3000mg sits among the technological additives.

Duck & Rice is the meatier and the denser of the two. Duck meat meal at 28.1% heads the list with brown rice at 28% immediately behind it, then naked oats, peas and poultry fat fill the middle. The analysis follows suit: protein at 27.0%, converting to 29.3% of dry matter, fat at 18.0% or 19.6% of dry matter, ash at 6.5%. Energy comes in at 388 kcal per 100g, the higher figure of the pair.

Dicalcium phosphate appears on this list and not on the lamb one, an added source of calcium and phosphorus, though no quantity for either is printed. Duck is the only named meat here, which suits a pup being steered away from chicken, but the poultry fat further down means the bag cannot serve a strict single meat plan.

Duck & Rice works out at £4.00 a kilo and Rich In Lamb & Rice at £3.35 a kilo, both sold in 2.5kg and 15kg bags.

Neither bag feeds to a single settled amount, because a puppy's ration climbs through the fastest growing weeks and then eases back again. From our own energy estimate, a 20kg pup aged 4 to 12 months would get through roughly 307 to 375 grams a day of the duck recipe. The lighter lamb one runs to 342 to 418 grams. Let the growth chart and your pup's condition decide where inside that you land.