Years Puppy Complete Nutrition System: Chicken Thigh Vegetable Casserole review

Every one of the three recipes lands in our Outstanding band. Fresh food built for puppies is a strong field, and the typical fresh puppy food sits in our Outstanding band as well, so these trays are keeping company with the best the category has. Protein and processing, transparency and value all read Outstanding on the three, and nutritional balance does the same. The spread between the three is narrow enough that a puppy's protein history, not a ranking, should make the choice.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh Chicken Leg (15%) [Fresh Chicken thigh 60%, Fresh Chicken drumstick 40%], Fresh Chicken Gizzards (15%), Fresh Chicken Heart (15%), Fresh Chicken Liver (15%), Fresh Sweet Potato (11%), Fresh Red Pepper (9.5%), Fresh Pre-soaked Buckwheat (7.2%), Fresh Spinach Leaf (2.8%), Cold-Pressed Rosemary-infused Sunflower Oil (2.17%), Fresh Courgette (2%), Deactivated Nutritional Yeast (1%), Fresh Apple (1%), Vitamins & Minerals (1%), Fresh Pre-soaked Quinoa (0.8%), Taurine (0.25%), Cold-Pressed Organic Hempseed Oil (0.2%), Sun Dried Oregano (0.05%), Algae Powder (0.05%), Alfalfa powder (0.05%), Nettle Powder (0.04%), Chicory Root Powder (0.04%), Kelp Powder (0.03%), Chamomile Powder (0.02%), Dandelion Powder (0.01%).

Growth makes heavy nutritional demands, and these labels answer with animal. Muscle and organ entries come to 60% of every tray, listed cut by cut with a figure against each. No single meat line conceals a blend that might change from batch to batch. For a puppy, that is exactly the sort of label you want to be reading.

Organ meat does much of the heavy lifting. Chicken gizzards, heart and liver each come in at 15%, the turkey tray puts heart at 27%, and the beef spreads lung, heart, liver and kidney out behind its steak. Liver especially packs vitamins and trace minerals more densely than almost anything else a young body can lay down bone and tissue with.

Minerals are declared, though as fed and not as a percentage of dry matter. The range prints calcium at 4874mg per kilo of food, alongside phosphorus, zinc, iodine and vitamin D3. If your puppy is going to finish at the larger end, that is the panel to take to the maker for a dry matter figure. Skeletal growth is the one place where calcium really wants pinning down.

The carbohydrate share is kept small, with pre-soaked buckwheat and quinoa standing in for cereal and sweet potato, parsnip and peppers behind them. Quinoa holds every amino acid a dog needs, genuinely unusual in a plant. The pre-soaking softens both seeds before cooking.

Cold-pressed sunflower oil infused with rosemary supplies most of the fat, with organic hempseed oil in support and taurine added at 0.25% on every label. Each list then closes with tiny inclusions of nettle, alfalfa, dandelion, chamomile, kelp and chicory root. Chicory is the one with a real function: its inulin feeds the bacteria that a young gut is still building up.

Chicken leg at 15% splits into thigh and drumstick, and gizzards, heart and liver each match it at 15%. This label carries the highest protein in the range, at 42.7% of dry matter, with fat at 32.3%. Its carbohydrate estimate is the lowest at 15.0%, and its energy is the gentlest of the three at 140 kcal per 100g.

£9.48 a kilo across the range. Tray sizes run from 280g up to 1155g, taking in 630g, 770g, 875g and 980g on the way. They are sold one at a time or in fours, and stockists take 8 × 320g and 8 × 630g cases.

A puppy's portion moves, and no fixed line will hold it. The habit worth building is to weigh your puppy every week or so, read the tray's guide against the weight in front of you and step the amount up as the growth chart climbs. Feeding to the puppy, not to a fixed figure, is what keeps a young frame growing at a steady, even rate.