“Ideal” is a nice word for arbitrary fashion, literally a herd mentality.

This mirrors what happens with muscle cars, women’s handbags, JavaScript frameworks, and so many other things. The purpose remains ostensibly functional but the real driver is peer group status, to the point that function is totally compromised but the peer group loves it.

So an arbitrary ideal, then? As in, not conforming to 'the' ideal in the sense of some platonic, eternal idea of a cow, but some ideal in the mind of farmers of what they would prefer cows to be.

Ideal with livestock is usually for A reason, not arbitrary.

You don't want stubby legs because they don't breed as easily.

Breeding animals isn't like technology.

Isn’t any philosophy about cows a herd mentality?