Eccentric female abandons baby cow, perhaps (8)
I believe the answer is:
ruminant
'cow perhaps' is the definition.
(cow is a kind of ruminant)
'eccentric female abandons baby' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'eccentric' could be 'rum' (both can mean 'strange') and 'rum' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ruminant that I've seen before include "Cud-chewing animal" , "Animal chewing cud" , "Beast that chews the cud" , "contemplating" , "Cud chewing mammal" .)