To ensure they would always have fresh horses, each trooper usually had 3 or 4 mounts. The horse is viewed much like a cow in Mongolia, and is milked and slaughtered for meat as such. Since most of the Mongols' mounts were mares, they were able to live off their horses' milk or milk products as they moved through enemy territory. In dire straits, the Mongol warrior could drink some of the blood from his string of remounts. They could survive a whole month on only drinking mare's milk combined with mare's blood.