Fall 2024

2-Day Pig Harvesting Workshop

It’s Time to Reclaim the Ancient + Ethical Art of Butchering and Harvesting Our Own Animals

October 26th + 27th

Gain Invaluable Life Skills

Learning how to raise and harvest pigs on our own land, allows us to be in direct relationship with the food we eat and share with others. Whether you’re an experienced homesteader, a foodie or just beginning your animal husbandry journey, this workshop will teach you how to harvest pigs in a sustainable, humane and traditional way. You will gain skills in this workshop that will serve you the rest of your life.

Workshop Overview

Day 1: Humane Harvest

  • 9am: Morning Welcome: community introductions and farm fresh breakfast snacks

  • Discussion + Initial Teaching: what is humane slaughter?

  • Blessing of the Pigs: we will honor and ceremoniously bless the pigs we are going to slaughter

  • Dispatch, Skin + Evisceration: Zach will teach you how to skin & hang the pigs and will teach you why this is a crucial step to butchering as well as how to remove the internal organs

  • Offal Harvest: teaching on the organ meats - where they’re located and how to use them in cooking

  • Discussion on Butchering Equipment: what you’ll need to harvest at home and how to organize and arrange your cut table

Day 2: Cutting & Processing

  • 9am: Morning Welcome: farm fresh breakfast & overview of the day

  • Breaking the pigs down: how to start cutting up the meat and the lard

  • Front quarter cuts + hind quarter cuts: how to cut, store, package and cook these cuts

  • The Art of Trimming: what to do with all that vitamin D rich fat!

  • Storage: how to wrap your meat for long-term

  • Sausage Making: Heathar’s favorite blends, equipment and sausage making tips

  • Cooking: A discussion on cooking different cuts of pork

  • End Feast Celebration: farm meal of smoked pork shoulder to celebrate the harvest!

Meet Zach:
Butcher, Teacher + Homesteader

Zach brings over a decade of first-hand butchering and animal husbandry experience to this workshop. Zach has spent many years harvesting chickens, hogs and sheep - as well as spent time processing wild game meat during hunting seasons in the Rocky Mountains. Zach has trained and honed his butchering and processing skills with several ranchers and butcher shops in northern New Mexico and brings a diversity of knowledge to the literal table.

Meet Heathar:
Chef + Farmer

Heathar was raised close to the land where food, farming and hunting were not just something you did on holiday’s but was experienced in everyday life. Heathar’s mom is Sicilian and made all of their family’s meals from scratch. Her father raised hogs, chickens and beef cattle and hunted wild game all of which sustained their family throughout the seasons. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree - Heathar lives on a farm with her wife, Jen Antill, where they homestead and live off the land.

During the workshop, Heathar will be fueling the butchering team with farm fresh meals including smoked pork shoulder (that we harvest during the workshop!), sausage (made fresh from the harvest) as well as ancestral meals and nourishment provided from their farm.