The pictures were shared widely on social media sites like Weibo, where netizens expressed sorrow at the pigs' apparent watery fate.
Many also expressed sympathy for the farm employees.
"They look sincerely upset," one netizen wrote. "Why is no one taking care of this?"
However, some also pointedly observed that the pigs would eventually have been slaughtered anyway - and many suggested that the farmers' distress might have been motivated more by the loss of earnings rather than pity for the animals' plight.