Vet's Kitchen Grow & Develop review

Grow & Develop settles into our Good band and sits well clear of the middle of the puppy dry field, which occupies that band too. Transparency reads Outstanding, nutritional balance Excellent, and protein and processing and value both read Good, so the label holds up wherever you look at it. Three things you can see on the pack do the work: the chicken itemised share by share, the calcium printed and in range, and a starch load under the category typical. That last figure is 34.8% of dry matter against 39.0%.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 47% (Including Dried Chicken 38.5%, Chicken Fat 5.5%, Chicken Gravy 3%), Brown Rice 28.5%, Oats, Dried Egg, Brewer's Yeast, Salmon Oil, Beet Pulp, Minerals, Mannanoligosaccharides 425 mg/kg, Fructooligosaccharides 425 mg/kg, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Seaweed Oil Extract, Beta Glucans 100mg/kg, Nucleotides 100mg/kg.

The chicken breakdown is the most useful thing on this label. Dried chicken at 38.5% is the backbone. Drying has already taken the water out, so the 38.5% turns up in the finished kibble much as printed. Chicken fat at 5.5% and chicken gravy at 3% make up the rest of the declared 47%, and the analysis backs the headline with protein converting to 36.4% of dry matter.

Brown rice at 28.5% carries the starch with oats behind it, both gentle, slowly digested cereals rather than filler. Beet pulp adds a mild fibre that most young guts take in their stride. The carbohydrate estimate lands at 34.8% of dry matter, under the 39.0% typical of a puppy dry food, which for a rice based recipe is a tidy result.

Calcium is declared, and it converts to 1.2% of dry matter. On a growth food, no single line on the pack counts for more. Too little and a big frame is undersupplied, too much and the skeleton can be pushed along faster than it should go. Anyone rearing a large breed pup wants to find a printed figure inside the growth range, and here it is. Ash converting to 8.2% of dry matter sits sensibly alongside it.

The gut package is unusually complete for a mainstream growth kibble. Mannan and fructo oligosaccharides are both written into the ingredients at 425 mg/kg, with beta glucans and nucleotides at 100 mg/kg each. A named strain of Enterococcus faecium is listed as a live gut flora stabiliser. Brewer's yeast adds natural B vitamins on top, and the whole set points at the same job of settling a young digestion through the wobbliest few months.

Around that, dried egg brings high quality protein, and salmon oil and seaweed oil extract bring marine fats for coat and brain. Yucca schidigera is the old standby for tempering stool odour. The additive panel is dosed openly too, with D-L methionine at 1,769 mg/kg and L-carnitine at 77 mg/kg among the entries, plus chelated forms of zinc, iron and copper that a growing body absorbs readily.

£5.03 a kilo, sold in 1kg, 7.5kg and 15kg bags.

A growing pup's daily amount is never settled for long, since it climbs with age and with the grown-up size your dog is aiming at. Take your starting figure from the maker's growth chart, then let your pup's own shape fine tune it.