But being killed by someone trying their damnedest to do it as humanely as possible sure beats getting torn apart by some predator aye!
There are two factors to consider here when speaking about an animal in the wild meeting its end in the teeth and claws of the predator, and a farmed animal living its entire life in horrible condition before being taken to a slaughterhouse to be killed.
An animal in the wild that is being preyed upon usually lives its life as it sees fit, until it becomes a target. When that day comes, it's usually a surprise, resulting in an adrenaline rush, fight or run for its life until it either escapes or is killed by a predator.
Today (used to be better in the past), a farmed animal spends almost entire life in horrible conditions that I cannot even begin to describe here. On top of horrendous living conditions, it's what is done to these animals as well, calves being dehorned without any anesthetics, chicks being debeaked, piglets having their tails cut off...many horrible things to make animals more compliant with living in absolutely horrendous conditions. All of those can cause chronic, lifelong pain.
Then, when this life of absolutely pitiful existence comes to an end (not a natural end, farm animals are killed at a fraction of their natural lifespan), they are shipped over to the slaughterhouse, once again in a cramped truck trailer (you might have seen these trucks while you were driving, almost every single one of them has slaughterhouse as a destination, animals are rarely moved like this for other reasons).
When they arrive at the slaughterhouse, it's nothing like being about to be attacked by a predator in the wild. They usually are rounded up, go through a narrow passage to the kill floor where they are stunned usually with bolt guns, (and these can and do fail, requiring multiple shots), electricity (not flawless either, sometimes it just paralyzes rather than stuns) or gas chambers (which are CO2 and cause immense suffering due to how CO2 acts, causing gasping for air, airways burning, and panic similar to drowning). Then, when they are stunned, they have their throats slit. Sometimes they are even still alive at this point, because sometimes when stunning fails, workers will just not bother again. This is the final step that is supposed to cause fast death, but sometimes even after they have their throats slit or stuck, they can still remain conscious for up to a minute or more, which is displayed by some obvious signs such as writhing, raising their heads on a hoist line and looking around, tail wagging, etc. It was previously believed these are all unconscious body movements, but the recent evidence suggests the animal is very likely conscious and aware at these stages.
There is much more horror that I omitted to avoid making this into a full blown essay instead of just one simple forum post. Islamic and jewish methods of slaughter are in whole other league of cruelty, they don't even bother with stunning for example.
And regarding labels such as "cruelty-free", "free range", "humane slaughter"...etc. These are all sounding good and noble, but in practice, 99 percent of the meat, dairy and eggs on the market today come from the above described factory farms and slaughterhouses.
So, in closing, if I had to be an animal and someone let me choose, I think I would pick living in the wild. After all, there's some chance of survival. Not every wild animal will meet its end as a prey. On a farm, there's close to 0 chance of survival for most of the animals (excluding some like horses, but even aversion to horse meat is mainly a Western thing, it's not universal). You will be killed, either for food or because you are not useful anymore (such as spent egg laying hens, male calves...etc).
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Disclaimer: this post does not serve to convert anyone, make someone stop eating meat, or whatever. Do not get an idea that I am trying to promote veganism here or such).
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