🐎 Mare

Mare is an adult female horse, a domestic animal kept for riding, work and milk. The mare is the adult female horse (Equus caballus), milked since ancient times in the steppes of Central Asia and Mongolia. According to FAO, horses are more often kept as dairy animals in cool regions, and donkeys in dry ones. For Mongolian herders, mare's milk is an important source of animal protein.

Milking a mare is not easy: according to FAO, it has to be done five or six times a day, and she lets down her milk only when her foal is close by. So the foal is kept beside the mare, and she is milked a little at a time.

Mare's milk is watery and sweetish: according to FAO, it averages 1.6 g of fat, 2.0 g of protein and 6.6 g of lactose per 100 g, with only 48 kcal. In protein and lactose content it is the closest to human milk. Caseins make up only 40–45% of the protein, so rennet does not form a curd and the milk cannot be made into cheese. The fat of mare's milk is lower in saturated fatty acids (about 40% versus 65–75% in cow's milk) and richer in polyunsaturated ones.

The main product is koumiss; in Mongolia it is called airag and regarded as the national drink. Mare's milk is fermented with lactic acid bacteria together with yeasts, traditionally in a leather bag at 20–30 °C. The result is a slightly fizzy drink containing 0.6–2.5 g of alcohol per 100 g. Koumiss has been known since around 2000 BC, and in 2019 UNESCO inscribed the Mongolian technique of making airag in a khokhuur, a leather vessel, on its list of intangible cultural heritage.