Matthew Herbert's attempt to document the life cycle of a pig thwarted after abattoirs and vets refuse to let him record the slaughter

A veterinarian has ruined Matthew Herbert's plan to document the sounds of a pig's life, from birth to post-mortem supper party. The celebrated electronic musician has been forced to cancel a "crucial" portion of his One Pig project, after a vet forbade Herbert from recording the animal's slaughter.

"Rather frustratingly, and despite many phone calls, we have found it impossible to find an abattoir to allow us to record the death of the pig," Herbert wrote on his site this week. "We found one farmer willing to let us record, but then the attending vet did not allow it."

While Herbert's previous projects have recycled sounds from grave-sites, parliament and the human body, One Pig is perhaps his most ambitious recording. "I will be there at [the pig's] birth, during its life, present at its death, and during the butchery process," he explained on his website. "Its body will then be given to chefs new and old," including Fat Duck's Heston Blumenthal, "[and] there will be a feast. Maybe a pair of shoes and a drum from the skin, and a toothbrush from its bristles, and ink from its blood." Herbert also previously promised a flute from its bones.

While it all may sound like a grisly joke, Herbert has not approached the process with levity. "For me the death was always a crucial part of the project," he wrote. "It was the part I was looking forward to the least, but the part I felt was most pertinent in my understanding of this life."

Born in mid-August, Herbert's pig was finally killed away from the microphones earlier this week. As his one-line post reads: "The pig is now dead." It will now only live in sound.