Calling themselves livestock is an emotional response. They all know in the past humans were the rulers of the world, yet now they are reduced to huddling behind walls. Any who venture outside risk getting eaten very soon. So, in fact outside of the walls they are just livestock, little more, inside they aren't, but this incident showed them all that can change at a moment's notice, and they aren't totally safe anywhere.
It's actually quite interesting they haven't ever been too interested in killing the giants. If they could pull off walls like that, they could have easily built killing fields. Basically alleys where the giants could have entered only one at a time, and even so very tightly, removing their ability to react in a timely fashion. It would have been child's play then to kill them. Although that would have left behind a giant carcass to somehow get rid of, but I'm sure that would be a small price to pay. Who knows if the giants are edible... That would have brought lots of protein onto the table...