There is almost nothing that could happen which would make me feel poorly for eating cows, chickens, pigs, and fish.

The assumption here is that simply because a being is conscious, it is therefore special. Let's take away that assumption, and then work forwards. Of what significance is consciousness?

I think that there is a difference between entities with consciousness and those without, in that you can't cause pain and suffering to an entity without consciousness. In that sense, they are "special". But that doesn't mean we shouldn't eat them, just that we shouldn't be cruel to them.

That actually sounds like a low figure to me - there are 7 billion people, so on average only 10 animals per person? Sure, cows are big, but fowl aren't.

But 'slaughtering' misses the point. Nature is constant slaughter. Despite what we think of nature as being a cuddly, friendly thing, the animals in nature are locked in a literally deadly battle. The reasons why herbivores generally startle so easily is because if they don't, they die, and die horribly. We think it's cute, but it's literally there to keep them alive.

The issue isn't 'slaughtering' as far as I can see - since that is an exceptionally natural state for an animal - it's how the animals are treated up until they're slaughtered.

Not to mention that if we're talking about sheer numbers of organisms, the ones that are slaughtered for actual consumptions are a drop in the ocean compared to all the animals that are slaughtered in farming. Mice plague? Hell, just normal mice, no plague? You rarely hear the vegetarian protestors complaining about the huge numbers of rodents killed in farming. It increases in magnitude as you go down, too (snails etc, and increase again for insects). I think it's funny that above we have a complaint about 'not eating the cute rabbit', yet no-one champions the rights of vermin, despite them dying in far greater numbers. Generally no-one cares about them, because they die 'over there' and don't end up in line of sight.

So yeah, treat meat animals humanely, that's a tenable goal, but 'stop the slaughter'? It requires wilfully turning a blind eye.

I'm not sure that we necessarily need to become vegetarians in order to condemn the poor treatment of animals. It's perfectly possible (albeit more expensive) to raise and kill animals in a humane manner.

Personally I have no problem with humans eating meat, in my view it's part of our nature, but I do have a problem with raising them in battery farms and people kicking their pets etc.