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A cloven hoof, cleft hoof, divided hoof, or split hoof is a hoof split into two toes. Members of the order Artiodactyla that possess this type of hoof include cattle, deer, , , , , and sheep.
The two digits of cloven-hooved animals are homologous to the third and fourth fingers of the hand. They are called claws and are named for their relative location on the foot: the outer, or lateral, claw and the inner, or medial claw. The space between the two claws is called the interdigital cleft; the area of skin is called the interdigital skin. The hard outer covering of the hoof is called the hoof wall or horn. It is a hard surface, similar to the human fingernail.
The almost finger-like dexterity available to cloven-hooved mammals such as and Ovis combined with a hard outer shell and soft and flexible inner pads provides excellent traction in their precarious habitats.
The mammal with a cloven hoof is an even-toed Ungulates of order Artiodactyla as opposed to the odd-toed ungulates of Perissidactyla, such as the horse, which have one toe, or the rhinoceros, which has three toes. The five-toed ancestors of the earliest Eocene had already developed feet that suggest odd-toed and even-toed descendants to the modern viewer. Even Phenacodus, the most generalized of the early mammals, has a foot in which the central toe is somewhat larger than the others and could be placed in the division of odd-toed ungulates, Perissidactyla.
This rule thus excludes the camel from the list of kosher animals because although the camel does ruminate it does not possess true "hooves" – it walks on soft toes which have little more than a nail merely giving an appearance of a "hoof". Similarly the pig, although it has cloven true hooves, does not ruminate. Other animals such as horses, dogs and cats exhibit neither characteristic and are thus also forbidden for Jewish consumption.
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