Since the twolegger is on my mind...

[camwyn]

a few quick questions for those of y'all who know kashrut better than I do.

1. I seem to remember that giraffes are considered kosher animals, but I could be wrong. Anyone care to verify or refute this?
2. How about okapi?
3. Monkeys? I am looking for rulings on creatures with grasping ability here, since there is a possibility that our riding animal might have rudimentary talents in that area.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Giraffes might be technically kosher, but it may not be possible to slaughter them properly and they may have been declared treyf.

Okapi should be OK.

Monkeys are *definitely* not kosher.

[dhole.livejournal.com]

As far as giraffes go, they are technically kosher. However, the problems involved in restraining giraffes (they can kick lions to death, if I recall correctly) and cost have meant that it hasn't been eaten much by Jews of late (R. Saadia Gaon identifies the zemer, one of the listed kosher animals as a giraffe). There are those who won't eat animals that don't have an established tradition, though, which would exclude giraffes.

Okapis are in much the same situation -- while they might technically be kosher, it's vanishingly unlikely that kosher okapi meat is going to be avaliable any time soon.

Monkeys, on the other hand, are right out.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Okapis are in much the same situation -- while they might technically be kosher, it's vanishingly unlikely that kosher okapi meat is going to be avaliable any time soon.

Unless, of course, they farmed them (as they do venison and bison).

Re:

[camwyn]

Well, the major reason I ask about okapi is not because I am concerned with eating actual okapi. The hypothetical two-legged riding animal, as I mentioned in the original post, is almost certainly a browser rather than a grazer. While I had assumed it had a neck structure more similar to that of swans than modern mammalia (40+ bones instead of only seven), the end effect was still that of something in the Giraffidae family. As a browser of a size acceptable to humans, it probably originally lived in relatively dense forests and may still dwell there. This is essentially the habitat of the okapi, and would imply that - whatever the arrangement of the true knee, thigh, and hock bones - the toes could be arranged in the same fashion: that of a forest-dwelling, hoof-bearing mammal. Cloven hoof, chews cud, there you go.

Urrrgh. head hurt, brain dirty again. Need ibuprofen. stupid weather.