My own recount

The animals at the Manor Farm are very unhappy and not pleased with their situation because Mr. Jones, the owner of the farm, was drinking all the time and didn't take good care of his animals. He was often angry and forgot to give the animals food and water and was also too lazy to clean their barn.

One night, the oldest pig named Old Major invited all animals into his barn to talk about the situation. He told the animals that they all had to work so hard without getting anything back.
He also told them that they had to change something otherwise they would only get exploited for the greed of one person and have to live like slaves.

Soon after his speech Old Major died.
Time passed by and the situation didn't get any better. One night, when Mr. Jones came home from the Red Lion pub, he was really drunk and aggressive and didn't feed the animals.
This was too much for the animals an they planed a revolt.
All animals together hunted Mr. Jones away from his farm.

They were now on their own and were very happy that they were finally free.
They changed the name of the farm to Animal Farm.
The pigs were the most intelligent creatures on the farm, so they leaded the farm.
They invented new rules like "Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy", "No animal shall drink alcohol" and "All animals are equal".
They still had to work hard but now they worked for themselves and not for their owner, that was the big difference which made them happy.

The leadership was hold by two different pigs. One named Snowball, the other named Napoleon.
In every suggestion or new rule they wanted to invent, they had different opinions.
The animals on the farm always could vote for or against a new rule.

Snowball always brought up very nice ideas and rules because he cared very much for the welfare of every animal on the farm.
But Napoleon was getting more and more selfish and rude. He secretly raised some dogs for his own purpose. One day he set his dogs on Snowball and banished him from the Animal Farm.

Now Napoleon had full control over the Animal Farm. No animal dared to contradict Napoleon.
He was feared because he had his big strong dogs under his command.
He used a pig called Squealer as his right hand. Squealer was the propaganda minister of the farm and he could slowly convince most animals to respect and honor Napoleon as their great leader.
He commanded the animals to build a windmill. He stole the plan for the construction of the windmill from Snowball, who wanted to build one when he was still on the farm.
The animals had to work extremely hard, much harder then when Snowball was still there. Also Napoleon shortend the food ration for all the animals except for the pigs.
Generally the pigs didn't have to work as hard as the other animals and they only did non-physical labor.

At one time the humans tried to conquer back the Animal Farm. They failed, but they could blast away the windmill. So the animals had to rebuild the windmill which needed extreme efforts. As a consequence Napoleon again increased the working times and decreased the food ration.
The longer Napoleon was in power, the more the animals had to suffer. Only the pigs had continously a better lifestyle.
Nearly all the rules which were invented after the revolt, which were standing for equality and freedom, Napoleon had changed for his needs.
He began trading goods like eggs and wood with humans to buy alcohol and other consumables he wanted.
The pigs acted more and more like humans.
In the end, the animals on the farm saw no difference between the life they had when Mr. Jones was in power and between the one they had under Napoleon.