If they lived happy lives with great care and lots of space and were killed humanely, then I'd still have a problem in that to feel okay about eating meat, I feel like I'd need to be able to kill an animal myself. If I'm disgusted at the idea of that, or just not prepared to slaughter an animal, then I don't feel like I should eat them. I have to be happy with the entire process, not just pay someone to get me what I want without having to consider the consequences.
Obviously not being a vegan, I'm not completely in line with that as it's all part of the same industry. But I could definitely milk a cow or pick eggs from under a chicken!
Treen, we think alike! That is exactly how I feel about it. I grew up on a 40 acre family farm. We had chickens, cows (for milk and meat), pigs, horses, gardens, ducks, cats, dogs, hay fields, etc. My Dad considered himself a gentleman farmer in addition to his regular job. The men in my family hunt (hated it, still do) during deer season. This was in Upstate NY. I've long since moved away.
We milked the cows, gathered eggs from the chickens. Harvested the garden, etc. Then my parents (Dad) would load up a couple of pigs or a cow on a truck and take them to the local slaughter house, for the pig to be I think shot in the head with a bolt of electricity and then the throat slit. I'm not sure if the pig was hung from it's hind legs before or after it was supposedly killed. I never actually saw the whole thing, although I sat in the car and waited one time and saw part of it. I hated it. Hated the thought of it. Dad must have killed the chickens himself, but I never saw it.
How well were the animals treated? Who knows. Better than a factory farm, that's for damn sure. As well as they could be? Probably not. Better than the vast majority of even family farms? Probably.
Even though the cows had a 'relatively' good life--barn, pasture, creek, food, etc.--they would still escape every once in a while and we'd have to chasing down a stray cow all over the place.