Huns were Great Horsemen
The Huns came to be renowned for their abilities on horses. From an early age, the Hunnish males were trained to ride a horse. Riding and archery were both taught to male Huns. For a nomadic tribe, there were few things a man valued over a good horse. The Romans noticed that the Huns were very dedicated to their horses and even suggested that the Huns did everything atop the back of the horse. Some accounts suggest that the Huns even slept and ate upon their horses. Their skill on the horse was part of what made them particularly devastating barbarians in that they could approach quickly and shoot arrows in order to attack from a substantial distance. They could raze entire cities without ever leaving the back of their horses.
The Huns, and especially Attila knew that part of the fearsome reputation of the Huns came from their skill on the horse. Therefore, whenever the Huns went into battle they would bring with them plenty of extra horses in order to make their army seem larger than it was. The tactic may have worked because accounts of Hun attacks put the army at substantially larger than historians believe Attila’s army to have been.
In times of long campaigns the extra horses may have also provided food. Though the Huns had a wide range of domesticated animals, their main source of meat came from sheep. They would make stew from the mutton in their brass cauldrons. On long campaigns if the mutton ran out then it was possible for the Huns to eat horses that did not perform as well or were not as valuable as others. They were also known to drink mare’s milk and even make cheese.