If you make a preset with that mane texture above, but the black square was transparent (alpha channel) and saved as a .png as Mane1.png and then use the one above as a .jpg, the black square remaining a black square (make the rest of the mane coloured however you like) then the following code should give you claws that just appear every 30 seconds, then disappear 30 second later.
To animate them slowly extending would take me a little while to code. And they'd always be on a timer. I don't know how to make them key toggled.
material preset_1_maneMat
{
receive_shadows off
technique
{
pass
{
lighting off
depth_write off
scene_blend add
emissive 0.0 0.0 0.0 1
ambient 0.5 0.5 0.5 1
fog_override true
cull_hardware none
cull_software none
texture_unit
{
anim_texture Mane1.png Mane2.jpg 60
tex_address_mode wrap
filtering trilinear
}
}
}
}