Five-hundred pigs have been culled at an Alberta farm that has been quarantined because some of the herd was discovered to have the H1N1 virus.
However, authorities stressed that the culling was not related to the virus, but was done to ease overcrowding.
Due to the quarantine, the producer could not ship his biggest pigs to market, leaving him with more animals than his operation could handle.
Dr. Gerald Hauer, Alberta's Chief Veterinarian, told a news conference "this doesn't have anything to do with the flu."
"It has to do again with animal welfare," he said.
"It was not something that we wanted to do, it was something we had to do," Hauer added. "Due to the quarantine, these animals can not be moved off the farm as they normally would."
"The living conditions would soon become unacceptable due to overcrowding and they (the pigs) would have been in distress."
The herd of 1,700 remains under quarantine.
The farms belongs to Arnold Van Ginkel, who moved his family to Canada from The Netherlands in 2003.
"Two weeks ago, our dream turned into a nightmare after it was found out that our hogs were exposed to the H1N1 virus," he said in a statement released late Saturday afternoon.
"Right away we called in our farm vet after we saw some of our hogs were sick. We have fully co-operated with the government. We have quarantined our barn to make sure that the virus would not have a chance to spread to other farms or to people. Our first priority has been to protect our family, our neighbours and our industry."
The market value of the pigs is about $65,000. Van Ginkel will be compensated for his loss.
