Ruminantia is a
taxon within the
order Artiodactyla that includes many of the well-known large grazing or browsing
mammals: among them
cattle,
goats,
sheep,
deer, and
antelope. All members of the Ruminantia employ
foregut fermentation and are
ruminants: they digest food in two steps, chewing and swallowing in the normal way to begin with, and then regurgitating the semidigested
cud to rechew it and thus extract the maximum possible food value.