Horse milk is produced in special farms called horse dairies. After the foal’s birth, the mare stays with the foal for two months to provide sufficient nutrition. After this period, the mare is separated from her foal daily for a few hours to be milked.
Horse milk production is a careful and animal-friendly process with special milk machines adapted to the mare’s udder. Milking the mare happens 2 – 5 times daily, with breaks of up to three hours between the milking sessions. These machines comply with international hygiene regulations to guarantee milk quality.
After milking, the raw horse milk is cooled to 3° Celsius or frozen as quickly as possible to preserve its freshness. If needed, raw horse milk can be transformed into powder and processed in capsules.
Depending on the breed of the mare, up to 10 liters of horse milk per day is produced, and about two liters of horse milk is kept for human consumption; this ensures that the growing foals are still sufficiently fed.
The period of separation allows foals to eat foal feed and hay and to play with each other, which helps in their further development.
