I’d get the fecal done and worm accordingly, as per vet advice. He does look as if worms are a strong possibility.
Cute little guy! Will you post a conformation photo for us when you can? It’s difficult to tell how he’s made from your photos but he looks pretty good.
He’s a lucky guy, that you chose him. 
Good for you to get him accustomed to being groomed. You’ll be able to see and feel any changes as he grows. As I’m sure you know, grooming is important. To get to know each other, as well as to check for injuries and pick out hooves.
It’s amazing what youngsters can do to themselves, things that when caught early are no big deal but if discovered late (under all that hair) can become an issue. 
He got his first brushing today and will puck up his fronts. Today was also his first turnout and he let me catch him multiple times after getting his run and play out. He needs a bath and he has a blanket on the way too. His ribs feel more covered already and aren’t severely jutting just would like that belly more up top lol I’ll be taking a fecal in Tuesday. He’s the quickest learner! What a neat lil clean slate he has been already and look forward to his future
You’ll need a good, but gentle, curry to make it through all of that coat! 
Yeah it’s a wooly matted mess. Gonna need to tough out a bath lol now that he’s in the pasture instead of his lil pen hopefully I can get ahead of it!
Maybe just start with a good curry in sections over a span of days and save the bath for later when he’s settled in. You don’t want to overwhelm him with new experiences as this point in time. Of course you see him and his reactions and I don’t, but it is usually best to take it slow. Have you raised a youngster before?
I’ve raised and trained feral horses and trained many from all walks of life but not in a minute, meaning like 10+ years ago. He’s a very quiet calm and affectionate. He had a good curry over most of his body today and loved it. He’s very itchy lol the dirt is more than a good curry can handle though we made a bit of a dent lol
That’s great.
It doesn’t matter if you haven’t done it in awhile, you’ve done it and you won’t forget how babies react and that they are all different in their progress. You know what you’re doing. Have fun.
It looks as if your mare is comfortable with him, has she cheered up?
She really has. Poor girl was pretty down even my neighbor said she’s glad to see her out playing again.
Maybe, but you have no way of knowing what you can feel under the long hair. I am not wanting to argue but just throwing out my reasons as to why I would feed him differently than you-- if he was mine.
I am sure that under the OP’s care he will now thrive and get what he needs.
Just two things to add to the discussion:
When i adopted my mustang at age 3 a friend adopted a weanling from the same gather and HMA. Of course we don’t know direct parentage of either, but there is reason to believe the two have similar genetics–the big difference being mine did the bulk of her growing in the wild, my friend’s did the bulk of her growing in domestic setting with better nutrition and more reliable access to food. My mare is 14.3, her’s is 16.2.
Earlier this year I worked with an equine nutritionist (with proper credentials). I had previously had my mustang on a low NSC diet because of the clear draft influence I thought she would be more prone to metabolic issues and figured there was no harm in feeding low NSC either way. Well, the nutritionist was able to recognize that she actually wasn’t getting enough starch–fast and easy to use energy–for the work that was being demanded of her. So we tested her for metabolic issues to be sure, she does not have them and actually deliberately upped her starch content significantly over time. As a result, not only is she performing better, she also lost weight and is leaner and fitter. Of course, my mustang is in heavy work and OP’s is much younger and not in any work. And I do think feeding a youngster low NSC seems safe and wise. But I did want to share this story about my mustang only to say that sometimes even the draftier types really need the right type of diet for their work load and many can handle higher levels of starch.
We had a feral horse from a herd in Nevada that was caught at best guess 4-5 year old, as his last permanent teeth were finishing coming in.
He did show some draft influence in his breeding, mostly his big platter feet and solid conformation.
As a ranch horse, he was extremely agile and athletic, way more than his heavy looks would have let us believe and was extremely smart about horse social graces and better than most as a cutting horse.
He was the kind of herd boss that never made faces or threatened anyone, no one shied from him, but all got along fabulously with him just looking at any one wanting to start trouble.
Moving and sorting cattle, he just seemed to read their mind and with minimal effort be in the right place at the right time and worked so smooth, no one hardly ever had to get out of a walk.
He was all about conserving energy, but being ready to jump in if necessary.
He never was overly fat or tied up or had any hint of metabolic problems.
His only problem was, according to our vets, he may have gone thru a drought as a long yearling to middle two’s, when knees close and malnutrition caused the equivalent of rickets.
His knees didn’t close right and if ridden hard, he would get sore and caused us to retire him in early mid teens and they gave out on him at 20, sadly.
Will be always missed.
The point of this story, no matter how horses are raised, when very young, nutrition can be so very important and they grow so fast, we need to be sure we are doing right for them.
OP would do best to maybe work with a specialist vet that could advise where to go in her situation to insure her youngster will grow well, as she is already doing asking here.
There is such a thing as limiting NSCs too much for sure, especially without any good reason I’m curious what you had things down to?
When I say lower NSC, I mean at least keeping things 20% or below. A growing horse doesn’t need 30% NSC. Or even really 25% NSC, especially if it’s fed at typical rates of 5+lb a day. Most feeds with high NSC are high because of high starch, as they’re using a lot of cereal grains.
There’s nothing inherently wrong feeding 6lb of a 20% NSC feed to a foal or yearling or 2yo, but they don’t NEED it, and there’s no reason to even hint at possibly encouraging EMS with that. Yes, if they are working hard, they may need it (think 18 month racing stock in training, 2yos racing) but that’s something I disagree with anyway and not what the OP is doing.
Feeding them “more like” they will become metabolic, doesn’t mean feed them nothing more than 10% ESC + starch including hay.
This scenario from blob99 is a perfect example of why it’s not correct to say ALL horses must be fed NSC <15% (or 10%, which is what some of the fanatics want us to believe). If their work requires it, they require it. That’s why a lot of drafts who worked for a living, plowing fields all day, were able to, because the higher starch feeds they were fed fueled them. It’s also (part of) why they tied up, aka Monday Morning Sickness, after no (or very light) work on Sunday but still the same feed.
You have to feed the work the horse is doing.
So I started him on the Ration Balancer. I really think that’s going to be the best place to start for a couple reasons. He’s doing well already, his ribs are pretty much covered at this point (on palpation, he’s so fluffy your never could see them). In addition he’s still learning to like grains/pelleted feed. I can barely get him to eat 1lb of ration balancer twice daily (which is a single qt is all) there’s no way I can get him to eat the appropriate amounts of a concentrate requiring 6lbs daily. He will walk away and my mare eats it and if I stand there and watch he still walks away before he’s done. So I think we’re starting in the right place.
I sent his fecal out to our lab. I am shocked to find they said no parasites seen. Not a low fecal egg count but none seen. I’m not sure this is correct so am going to rerun next week and do an in house fecal myself too.
She was on 3lbs TC Senior (11.7% ncs) + vermont blend to balance out the fact that she was getting less than recommended amount of TCS. She also got 4lbs of alfalfa, free choice coastal, and 12 hours on pasture.
We’ve kept everything the same except we’ve swapped out 1lb of the TC Senior for 1lbs of Purina’s Omolene 200 (35-40% NCS). It’s slightly more kcals overall, but biggest difference is amount of starch content v. other energy sources. It didn’t surprise me that this gave her more energy, but what did surprise me was that she lost weight with the diet change. My only guess is that she has been able to use the calories more effectively. Of course, if her work load were to decrease or if she was out of work for any reason, I would reduce or drop the omolene 200. But yes, this is absolutely a lesson in having to feed the work the horse is doing and feeding the individual horse. I have another horse who is the energizer bunny but has a harder time building slow twitch muscle than my mustang. He is being fed with different considerations.
yep, exactly, you got him on better and/or more hay, which is always the starting point 
And TBH, since most ration balancers are kinda blah, some more, some less, it’s soooo nice to get them started on blander feeds so you don’t have to struggle to get from “omg that yummy high sugar feed was soooo good what is this crap you want me to eat now??” business 
Not surprising on this either, as his background wasn’t conducive to a lot of parasite contact. That said, I never trust a first FEC without any background, so doing another in a week is an excellent idea. At the very least, given his age and the time of year, even if the next one comes up clean/low I’d use Equimax to get bots and tapes which you won’t see on the FEC. Then in 8-12 weeks run another FEC to see what’s going on in his new environment.
I can definitely see that making a difference, both ways! Rice bran is another option for starch and some added fat which can also benefit the harder work.
Here’s some slightly better and new photos of Doodle today. He’s doing quite well, very non reactive, learns very quick with short sessions. His ribs are covering under all tht hair, belly maybe a bit smaller lol he’s growing too of course. Met our farrier today, not for his feet yet just socializing and lets me pick up and out all four. Also his first tying lesson and didn’t put up any fuss 
! Lookin a bit like mule but that’s to be expected lol
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