After being used in a "guess the weight" contest at an
agricultural show, orphaned piglet Babe is brought home to the farm of the contest winner, Arthur Hoggett. There, he is taken in by
Border Collie Fly, her irascible husband Rex and their puppies and befriends a duck named Ferdinand, who wakes people by crowing like a rooster every morning so he will be considered useful and be spared from being eaten. Dismayed when the Hoggetts buy an
alarm clock, Ferdinand persuades Babe to help him get rid of it. In doing so, they wake Duchess, the Hoggetts' cat, and wreck the house in the ensuing chaos. Rex sternly instructs Babe to stay away from Ferdinand and the house. Seeing Fly saddened when her puppies are put up for sale, Babe lets her adopt him. With the Hoggetts' relatives visiting for
Christmas, Hoggett decides against choosing Babe for
Christmas dinner and tells his wife Esme that Babe may bring a prize for ham at the next agricultural show. Ferdinand's love interest Rosanna is served instead, prompting Ferdinand to escape the farm. Babe investigates the fields, where he witnesses a pair of sheep rustlers stealing Hoggett's sheep and quickly alerts Fly and Hoggett, preventing the rustlers from taking them all. Impressed after seeing Babe sort hens, separating the brown from the white ones, Hoggett takes him to try and herd the sheep. Encouraged by the elderly Maa, Babe gets the sheep to cooperate by asking nicely, but Rex perceives Babe's actions as an insult to sheepdogs. When Fly stands up for Babe, Rex attacks and injures her and bites Hoggett's hand when he tries to intervene. Rex is subsequently chained to the dog house and sedated, leaving the sheep herding job to Babe. One morning, Babe scares off a trio of
feral dogs attacking the sheep, but Maa is mortally injured and dies as a result. Hoggett, thinking Babe was responsible, attempts to shoot him dead, but Fly finds out the truth from the other sheep and distracts Hoggett long enough for Esme to inform him about the dogs' attacks on neighbouring farms. When Esme leaves on a trip, Hoggett signs Babe up for a local sheep herding competition. As it is raining the night before, Hoggett lets him and Fly into the house, where he is scratched by Duchess, who in turn is temporarily confined outside as punishment. When she is let back in later, she gets back at Babe by revealing that humans consume pigs. After learning from Fly that this is true, Babe runs away and Rex finds him the next morning in a
cemetery. Hoggett brings a demoralised Babe home, where he refuses to eat. After Hoggett sings "
If I Had Words" and dances a
jig for him, Babe's faith in his affection is restored. At the competition, Babe meets the sheep that he will be herding, but they ignore his attempts to speak to them. As Hoggett is criticised by the bewildered judges and ridiculed by the public for not using a dog, Rex runs back to the farm to ask the sheep what to do. After promising he will treat them better from now on, the sheep disclose to him a secret password. He returns in time to convey the password to Babe and the sheep now follow his instructions flawlessly. Amid the crowd's acclamation, Babe is unanimously given a perfect score. When Babe sits down next to Hoggett, the latter praises him with the standard command to sheep dogs that their job is done, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do." ==Cast==