Can't we just improve
the lives of animals?
The simplest response is; lets stop killing them. That's the best improvement.
This excuse shows one of the big points about animal farming, that we also kill most animals at a fraction of their potential lives. Pigs is around 6 months, chickens for meat is around 6 weeks, if chickens are male then it's a couple of days. It's insane.
Also the majority of land animals in the UK are sent to gas chambers. Or the most common way to kill fish is suffocation or smashing them on the head. So even if we give them a hotel and luxury food first, we are still gassing them alive, or bashing them in the head. The focus is on the wrong point, not how comfy their short life is, but that we should stop killing them at all.
The notion of 'improvement' ignores the fundamental right to life these animals should have, like the rights we already grant to cats and dogs.
Let's make the best improvement, let's stop killing them.
