Skinners Puppy & Junior Duck & Rice Dry Dog Food – 2.5kg

Skinner's Field & Trial Puppy & Junior Duck & Rice – 2.5kg

The small bag of Skinner's puppy and junior food — the size to start a single pup on, or to keep alongside a sack so there is always fresh food in the house. Duck meat meal 28.1%, brown rice 28%.

Duck is the draw for most people who buy it: a meat many puppies have never met, in a recipe with no wheat, maize or barley. The kibble is triangular and deliberately small.

Performance & Benefits

• Duck meat meal at 28.1%, paired with brown rice at 28%.
• Free from wheat, maize and barley, which is what most owners come to this recipe for.
• Crude protein 27% and crude oils and fats 18% — a proper growth specification, at 388 kcal per 100g.
• Omega-3 at 1.65%, helped along by marine algae meal.
• Small triangular kibble that a weaning pup can manage without soaking.
• 2.5kg bag stays fresh for a single puppy through the first few weeks home.

Suitable For

• Puppies from weaning to roughly 18 months, depending on breed and type.
• A first bag, while you find out whether a pup takes to duck.
• Puppies with sensitivities to wheat, maize or barley.
• Bitches in whelp and through lactation.
• If you are rearing a litter or a large-breed pup, the same food comes in a 15kg sack at a better price per kilo.

Feeding

• Feed dry, or soften with a little tepid water for a very young puppy.
• Three or four small meals a day at first, dropping to two as the pup grows.
• Skinner's publish their daily amounts on the pack and through an interactive feeding guide on their own website rather than as a printed table, so none are quoted here.
• Change over from the breeder's food gradually across about a week.
• Fresh drinking water available at all times.

Composition & Analysis

• Composition: duck meat meal 28.1%, brown rice 28%, naked oats, peas, poultry fat, whole linseed, beet pulp, vitamins and minerals, brewer's yeast, dicalcium phosphate, cellulose, marine algae meal, with MOS, FOS, herb blend, glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate, seaweed and yucca.
• Analytical constituents: crude protein 27%, crude oils and fats 18%, crude fibres 3%, crude ash 6.5%, omega-3 1.65%.
• Energy content (ME) 388 kcal per 100g.
• Nutritional additives per kg: vitamin A 13,000 IU, vitamin D3 2,000 IU, vitamin E 350mg, taurine 100mg, plus iron, iodine, copper, manganese, zinc and selenium.
• Descriptions quoting roughly 25% protein and 11% fat for this bag are taking the figures from the adult Duck & Rice; the puppy and junior recipe is the one analysed above.

Care & Caution

• A growth food at 18% fat. A puppy carrying extra weight puts avoidable load on joints that have not finished forming, so feed to condition rather than to the top of the range.
• Once a dog is mature, change to an adult diet — staying on a puppy food keeps the energy and mineral levels higher than an adult needs.