What does a pig’s hoof look like?
The pig is a hoofed mammal. It is an ungulate like all hoofed animals.
Some hoofed animals have one toe, and others have two toes, or a split hoof. A split hoof is called a cloven hoof.
The pig has a cloven hoof. The front toe is split into two digits. On each side of the front toe is a smaller digit called a dew claw.
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The Finnish Forest Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus fennicus) is a large ungulate (hoofed) mammal in the deer family. It is a sub-species of the Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). It is also known as the European Forest Reindeer. It is an artiodactyl because it has cloven (split) hooves.
The Finnish Forest Reindeer has dark-brown to light-brown fur. Its coat has two layers of fur – a thick woolly undercoat and a longer-haired overcoat. It has long legs with wide, crescent-shaped, cloven hooves for walking across deep snow. It has white hair around its short tail.
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What is the difference between the American Bison (Bison bison) and the European Bison (Bison bonasus)?
The American Bison and the European Bison are large ungulate (hoofed) mammals in the bovine (cattle) family.
The American Bison and the European Bison are artiodactyl, because they have cloven (split) hooves.
The American Bison has longer hair on its neck, head, and forequarters than the European Bison.
The American Bison has less hair on its tail than the European Bison.
The American Bison has shorter horns and tail than the European Bison.
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What is a cloven hoof?
Some ungulate mammals have cloven hooves (hoofs).
Cloven means ‘split’ – a hoof split into two parts.
The split can be narrow or it can be wide.
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The African Pygmy Goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) is a miniature domestic ungulate (hoofed) mammal.
The African Pygmy Goat has caramel, white, grey, black, or patterned fur. It has brown eyes. Both the male and the female have beards and horns.
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The Armenian Mouflon (Ovis orientalis gmelini) is an endangered wild sheep, and an ungulate (hoofed) mammal. It is also known as the Armenian Sheep, Armenian Red Sheep, Iranian Red Sheep, or Trans-Caucasian Sheep.
The Armenian Mouflon looks like a sheep, but with reddish-brown fur, like a goat. Its underbelly is white. It has cloven (split) hoofs. It has large brown eyes. The male has wide, ridged horns, like the horns of a ram. It has small triangular ears.
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Ungulates are hoofed animals such as horses, donkeys, zebras, camels, giraffes, and deer. Hooves can be single (such as a horse’s hoof) or cloven (split into two parts). Deer, cattle, sheep, and goats have cloven hooves.
A hoof is the tip of a toe of an ungulate. It is made of keratin, a thick, hard covering. The sole of the hoof is partially rubbery, but hardens near the outer edges. There is also a hard wall formed by the solid nail rolled around the tip of the toe.
Humans keep animal’s hooves clean and trimmed. In the wild, animals have natural ways of keeping their hooves healthy.