And yes I know the happy farms do exist, i.e. farms where the farmer truly cares about the animals and where the animal has to only suffer at the end. But those farms are rare and meat from those farms are expensive and we can't feed the world with this.
The reality is when you need to breed Billions of animals a year - you just don't have time for animal welfare for most of those animals.
I think in the UK alone 8Billion animals are killed each year - according to Viva [0]. I can't even comprehend that number.
There are factory farms in the EU too - and compassionate world farming is trying to campaign for better treatment for these animals [1]
Baby steps...
[0]https://www.viva.org.uk/what-we-do/slaughter/slaughter-farme.... [1]https://www.ciwf.org.uk/
Edit: typos
I was thinking about the actual death of the animal. I think a quick slit of the throat and bleed out is probably better than starving to death or being literally ripped to pieces.
" (not 'happy' farms you see in childrens books) " I would also like to point out that these don't just exist in children's books, but are the common way of rearing animals in many parts of the world (I grew up in a agricultural area with cows, deer and sheep, in the UK and aside for in winter they had a large area of grassy fields to live in. So I can't speak about pig farms, but I'm fairly sure that the conditions you describe are illegal here and in the rest of Europe) Horrific conditions do not have to be a norm.