The Meriwether Academy PodcastEpisode 1
Episode 1 · February 4, 2026 · 23 min
How to Butcher a Hog, and Why It Still Matters
Fairfax Landstreet left sales and finance to raise hogs, cattle, chickens, and sheep in Dickson, Tennessee. He walks through the whole hog, from the scalding tank to the lard jar, and explains why the old skill is worth learning.
Learning to butcher a hog at the Meriwether Whole Hog Retreat, Fairfax Farms.
Our Guest
Fairfax Landstreet
Fairfax Landstreet is the founder, owner, and operator of Fairfax Farms in Dickson, Tennessee, about an hour from Nashville, where he raises hogs, cattle, chickens, and lamb. An economics graduate of Sewanee, he spent eight to ten years in sales and finance before starting with backyard chickens in Nashville and building the farm step by step. Fairfax Farms hosted Meriwether Academy’s first men’s retreat in April 2025 and its whole-hog retreat in February 2026.
In This Episode
Most men under forty have never seen a hog butchered. Their grandfathers likely had. In this first episode of the Meriwether Academy Podcast, Warren Steury talks with Fairfax Landstreet, the owner and operator of Fairfax Farms in Dickson, Tennessee, about how to butcher a hog, what it means to be a first-generation farmer, and why an old skill like this one still belongs in a modern man’s life.
The conversation was recorded ahead of Meriwether’s February 2026 men’s retreat on Fairfax’s farm, a weekend built around harvesting, butchering, processing, and packing a single farm-raised hog with ten men. The retreat has passed, but the lessons in this episode hold for anyone curious about whole-animal butchery, small farms, or the work of putting food on the table.
From Sales and Finance to a Farm in Dickson
Fairfax did not grow up on a farm. He studied economics at Sewanee and, in his words, “worked in various forms of sales and finance for probably 8 to 10 years.” He always knew he wanted to do something different. Farming turned out to be “a culmination of what I was decent at, what I wanted to do, and kind of my values and thoughts about culture and society.”
He started small. He raised chickens in his backyard in Nashville, then leased land outside the city and grew slowly: chickens for a year, then chickens and hogs for a couple of years, then cattle “as knowledge, land, and finances allowed because cows are more expensive.” Today the farm raises hogs, cattle, chickens, and lamb.
He is candid about the hard parts. Sheep, he says, are “kind of like the bane of my existence.” He sells a good deal of lamb in Nashville and admits, “I am pretty certain I’ve never made a dollar on lamb.” On a farm, the to-do list never finishes: you cross off the first two jobs, the sun goes down, and the next day starts at the top of the list again.
Warren asked how leaving a desk for soil and animals changed him. Fairfax described the move less as a change than as an arrival. He had always been “a weekend warrior,” camping, hunting, fishing, and working on his cars. Farming was “more towards what I should have been doing rather than away from” something else.
The Whole Hog Retreat
In February 2026, Meriwether men spent a weekend at Fairfax Farms with Fairfax Landstreet, learning to take one hog from the farm to the table.
The barn at Fairfax Farms.See upcoming events →Why Face the Slaughter at All?
For many men, the idea of killing an animal is foreign and uncomfortable. Fairfax has hunted for years, and even so he found killing a domestic animal to be a new experience. “Killing a docile animal that um wasn’t like trying to evade you is definitely a different situation,” he said. “It can shake people a little bit. It’s taking a life.”
His answer is to do it with respect: “you do it respectfully and as quickly and as utilitarian as possible and you give thanks.” He also argues that our distance from the process is the real problem.
Knowing the work behind a meal changes how you treat it. “You’re much less likely to throw out your leftovers if you if you know how much work goes into it,” he said. The animal tastes better, too, because it had a good life and because your own hands went into it. His summary of the whole experience: “It’s weirdly profound for how simple it all is.”
Heritage Skills in a Digital Age
Warren pressed the obvious objection. If the future will never require a man to butcher an animal, why learn? Fairfax gave two answers.
The first is practical. Preppers stockpile buckets of rice, he noted, “but the best food storage is is is on the hoof really.” And the deeper lost skill is preserving meat without refrigeration. He pointed to prosciutto as a way to put up a hog without a refrigerator, a reminder that our ancestors solved problems we now hand to machines.
The second answer is cultural. Asked what ties Americans together in 2026, he offered, half joking, “football, Panda Express, hamburgers.” Hog killing, by contrast, is a Southern tradition with real social weight. One man can do it alone, and Fairfax has, but he calls it “the longest weekend uh ever.” So families traditionally waited for a cold snap in winter, gathered friends and family, and split the meat among everyone who helped. In his words, “it’s very cultural um and it requires gathering.”
How to Butcher a Hog, Step by Step
Here is the process as Fairfax described it for the retreat weekend. It is an overview, not a substitute for hands-on instruction from an experienced butcher.
Friday: plan the work
The first evening is for dinner, conversation, and a briefing on how the weekend will run.
Saturday: the kill and the breakdown
- The kill. Watching is optional, and it is quick.
- Hair and skin. Fairfax prefers to keep the skin on, so the hog is scalded and scraped. If the scald goes wrong and the hair sets, the hog is skinned instead. “Hogs are quite hairy,” he noted.
- Gut and eviscerate. The organs come out next.
- Split the carcass. The hog is split in two, and each side is cut into three primals: the shoulder, the ham, and the middle, “which everyone loves which is bacon and ribs and pork chops.”
- Break down the primals. The primals are cut into retail cuts, packaged, and in some cases cured. Some of the meat is cooked for the group that weekend.
Sunday: tie up the loose ends
The second day is shorter: packaging, rendering lard, making sausage, and taking meat home. As Fairfax put it, day one is “cutting it up and forming a plan with what you want to do with what,” and day two is “packaging or rendering the lard.”
How much meat does a hog yield?
The hog for that weekend was “probably nearing 400 lb.” Fairfax’s rule of thumb: about 70 percent of live weight becomes hanging weight, “meaning no head, no guts,” and you take home about 70 percent of the hanging weight. That is a lot of meat, which is exactly why many hands make the work fun rather than grueling.
Lard, Cracklins, and Sausage
Nothing goes to waste on a whole-hog weekend. Everyone takes home a jar of rendered lard, and rendering produces cracklins. Fairfax admitted that the first time he made them he ate about ten pounds and made himself sick. The group also makes sausage, both stuffed in casings and loose for breakfast, and he hoped to cure and smoke summer sausage if time allowed.
For further reading he recommends the Foxfire series, which has “a lot of information on whole hog cooking.” He also issued a fair warning to anyone who joins a weekend like this: “I hope it doesn’t ruin Kroger meat for you the rest of your life, but it probably will.”
Who Should Learn to Butcher a Hog?
Warren asked who gets the most out of an experience like this. Fairfax said a man could come at it from many angles: a food lover who wants to learn butchery, someone interested in farming, homesteading, and self-sufficiency, a hunter who wants to break down his own deer (“it all kind of translates”), or a man who simply wants to spend a weekend doing something real with other men. He summed up the reasons in five words: “preparedness, culture, food, utility, and camaraderie.”
That last word matters to Meriwether. Our first retreat was held on Fairfax’s farm in April 2025, and the February 2026 weekend returned there with ten men. These are the kinds of experiences we build: competence with your hands, meals you helped create, and honest conversation with good men.
Vote With Your Dollar
Fairfax closed with advice for anyone who eats meat: buy from a small farm. “Vote with your dollar,” he said. “If it’s not me, pick another small farm. But vote with your dollar. Put your money where your mouth is.” Warren added that the meat in his own freezer comes from Fairfax Farms.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main steps to butcher a hog?
Fairfax Landstreet describes the order as: kill the hog quickly and respectfully, scald and scrape the hair (or skin it), gut and eviscerate, split the carcass in two, then cut each side into three primals (shoulder, ham, and the middle), and finally break those down, package, cure, and render the lard.
How much meat do you get from a 400 pound hog?
His rule of thumb is that about 70 percent of live weight becomes hanging weight (no head, no guts), and about 70 percent of the hanging weight comes home as meat.
What are the primal cuts of a hog?
Each side of the carcass is cut into three primals: the shoulder, the ham, and the middle, which holds the bacon, ribs, and pork chops.
Can one person butcher a hog alone?
It can be done, and Fairfax has done it, but he calls it “the longest weekend” ever. Traditionally families waited for a winter cold snap and gathered friends and relatives to share the work and the meat.
Where is Fairfax Farms?
Fairfax Farms is in Dickson, Tennessee, about an hour from Nashville. Fairfax raises hogs, cattle, chickens, and lamb.
Does Meriwether Academy hold men's retreats?
Yes. Meriwether Academy runs men’s retreats, wilderness expeditions, dinner lectures, and a weekly book club in Nashville. See the events page for what is coming up next.
Read the full transcript
Auto-generated captions from the episode, lightly edited for names. Select a timestamp to jump to that moment in the video.
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Warren Steury. I'm the founder of Meriwether Academy. Today I'm with Fairfax Land Street, who is the founder, owner, operator of Fairfax Farms in Dixon, Tennessee. The farm where I personally get all of my beef, pork, and chicken eggs when they're available and not sold out. Um, the reason why we're doing this video with Fax today is because at the end of February, at the end of this month, uh, our next men's retreat is down at Fax's farm. So, we've got an event that we're doing. We've got 10 guys. We're going down to the farm. We're going to spend two nights on the farm in Dixon, and we're going to learn how to harvest an entire hog. So, Saturday morning, we're going to slaughter a pig and we're going to spend the weekend harvesting, butchering, processing, and packing that pig. Uh, which is a valuable skill that not many people know how to do anymore. It's kind of like an ode to the past. So, that's
why we're making this video today. This is the first of, you know, maybe what will become a series of informal interviews. But, facts, thanks for your time this morning, man. and I'm excited uh to see you later on this month for our retreat. Uh I think it'd be cool if you could just maybe talk about how you became a farmer. You're first generation farmer. Your parents weren't farmers. You kind of came into this uh later in life. I mean, how did farming uh end up being what you do? Um thanks for having me, man. Um I'm really excited about the retreat as well. Um, butchering hogs is pretty fun. It's uh really uh it's it's a it's a pretty in intuitive, logical, and informative process. It all you don't do anything that doesn't make sense, and that's pretty fun. Then you get to um walk away with a bunch of tasty meat that you feel
really good about cuz you put in a decent amount of work to get it into your freezer. Um I started farming. I I was an econ major. I went to Swany and um worked in various forms of sales and finance for probably 8 to 10 years. And I always want knew I wanted to do something different and never really landed on anything. And um the Can you hear that phone going off? No. Um the uh farming was kind of a culmination of what I was decent at, what I wanted to do, and kind of my values and thoughts about culture and society. So I started really small. I started raising chickens in my backyard in in Nashville proper and then leased a farm about an hour east of Nashville and just kind of
grew it slowly. Did chickens for a year, then I did chickens and hogs for a couple years and then started raising beef as knowledge, land, and finances allowed because cows are more expensive. Um just yeah um so grew it step by step and here I am farming. Yeah I I think it's awesome. It's it's pretty inspiring. Do you still have lamb as well? I do the I have sheep. Um sheep are kind of like the bane of my existence. I I really I really like them and I really stress out about them. Um, I I do sell a decent amount of amount of lamb in Nashville. People really like it. I'm not wonderful at producing it. I'm way better at beef and pork. And because of that, lamb is kind of always third on my list.
And on a farm, your if you get to if you get to your to-do list and you and you do one and you cross it off and you get to two and you cross it off and then the sun goes down and then and then day three doesn't always start with your third to-do it. It starts with one again. Uh so lamb is uh it's kind of like a little hobby on the side. Um, we just had a bunch of lambs born. It It's There's ice all over the ground as we speak. And we just had a bunch of lambs born like nine degree nights. We had a we had a little lamb inside warming up at one point. And um they're just a lot of work and a lot of stress. Yeah. Um so I do I do them, but I'm I can get better. Well, I will say that if anybody listening, if you have the opportunity to buy some jalapeno and cheddar lamb broughtwurst or the cherry, I just prefer the jalapeno and cheddar lamb
broughtwurst from Fairfax Farms. It's awesome. The cherry's better grilled. I like the I like the jalapeno cheddar as well. I've sold a ton of lamb. I am pretty certain I've never made a dollar on lamb. Yeah, but I've sold a It's like So, I don't know. What are we doing here? But you could ask yourself about that on every aspect of farming. I mean it's like what are we doing here? Yeah. So how you know obviously being an econ major I mean you and I share a lot of similar thoughts about culture and I think just what it means to be a human and and the things that are valuable to human life. I feel like we're pretty much on the same beat with a lot of those things. So, I mean, what was it like shifting your lifestyle from, you know, growing up in Nashville, I'd assume, working on computers for time out of college, um, to now really having your hands and feet in soil and with animals. How has that changed you?
Um, I definitely shifted, but I would say in my mind and I I was a weekend warrior in terms of I was always camping or hunting or fishing or working on my cars, always tinkering. So, I wasn't really shifting towards something that I liked more and was better at. I was just shifting away from something I wasn't as good at and never really um loved or embodied or embraced. Um so I think I was just kind of waiting to get to what I wanted to always do, which is work for myself, be outside, jack of all trades, tinkering, etc. Which you need all that stuff if you're farming. And I I really love food. That's one of the biggest drivers is I'm just always kind of hungry and good food is good. So, um, but yeah, I I I
definitely shifted, but it it was it was more towards what I should have been doing rather than away from what I had rather than like away from something I was doing. I don't know. It's very forward focused. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, yeah, man. So, at the end of this month, uh the 27th of February, we've got this retreat. We actually held our first retreat ever uh at your farm back in April of last year. A raging success, right? A raging success. It was a whole lot of fun. It was great. Really cool group of guys. Um and for anybody who is just kind of tuning in, you know, Meriwether Academy, we do men's retreats. It's a men's group focusing on cultivating virtue through adventure and brotherhood. We do camping trips. We do retreats, dinners, book clubs, things like that. Um, and yeah, our next retreat, we're back at your farm. So, you know, this retreat's different because we're really focusing the whole weekend around the process of harvesting a hog.
So, for some guys that's like crazy to think about, you know, like we go to the store, we buy the food, but to actually put up with the process of killing an animal an animal, cutting it up, it's like a totally foreign thing. So my first question for you is to somebody who might be interested in coming but the idea of killing an animal is is totally foreign and maybe even a bit like uncomfortable to them. What could be the benefit of them leaning into this and learning what this is like and experiencing this weekend? What could that do for them? Um I've hunted I've hunted for quite a while. And killing a domestic animal was definitely like a new experience for me. Like killing a docile animal that um wasn't like trying to evade you is definitely a different situation. Um and
it's a yeah, it can be it can shake people a little bit. It's taking a life. you do it respectfully and as quickly and as utilitarian as possible and you give thanks and you um you know you raise the animal. It wouldn't be alive if you if it didn't have a purpose to ultimately nourish us. But um yeah, it's um it's an experience. I think it's it's unbelievable that it is so foreign to most people there. It's not a healthy disconnect to think that chicken comes in packs of four thighs wrapped in plastic. And that's just where it comes from. Um you're much you're much less likely to throw out your leftovers if you if you know how much work goes into it. Um butchering and packaging an animal. you just appreciate it more when you realize that it's it's another life you take um to
nourish your own. I think that's super important. You can get extremely philos uh you know religious and um you can get deep about this but you raise a good animal, you give it a good life and you slaughter it and you package it and put it in your freezer and you share it with your friends and family and eat it and grow from it in a lot of different ways and it's a beautiful thing and it's it's a really uh you will learn a lot in this process. Um, it's super cool and you make really good food out of it. Uh, because the animal had such a good life. The flavor is um, exceptional and it tastes even better when you know how much work your hands put into it. So, um, it's it's very important to see how the sausage is made. It makes you appreciate life, your own life, animals lives, food, effort, how how much effort goes
into a baby animal raised to a slaughterweight animal, the butchering, the packaging, the cooking, the enjoying it. It makes the meal and the sharing of a meal so much better. It's it's it's a pretty it's weirdly profound for how simple it all is. Yeah. So, you know, I think that that that's great. Thanks for sharing all that. You know, as culture shifts into more digital structures, right? What's the point of knowing how to butcher an animal anyway, right? like what's like if the future really doesn't demand that we know how to do this maybe in a worst case scenario it does right and I think that having that skill is important but like these old skills like looking back to the past practicing maybe these are like heritage practices
what do you think those add to somebody's life who may never really need to butcher an animal but all of his ancestors did But how do you think these types of skills fit into just the modern life that we face? Well, yeah. I mean, if we're all drinking Soilent green or plugged into a wall in two years or whatever, 30 years, who knows? Um, yeah, you won't need to be able to do this, I guess. Um, there's the worst case scenario that you mentioned briefly and everyone's like, I don't know, preppers are a thing. people like hoard five gallon buckets of rice in their pantry, which is like it's not a bad idea. Um, but the best food storage is is is on the hoof really. And the ability to harvest it and store it, which is like a fascinating subject because if it's worst case scenario, are you Yeah. Okay.
You like great, we have a hog, we'll slaughter it. Well, what if it's summer? What if there isn't a refrigerator? That's a whole another um I mean, slaughtering a hog, definitely a lost skill. Putting up meat without refrigeration, that is talk about a lost skill. Like that's that's pretty interesting to read about. um and and do like pushcuto that's like you don't push is not like a luxury thing at at Trader Joe's. Pushcuto is a way to put up a a hog without refrigeration. Um but aside from the pure utility of like this is this is food and we need food three times a day. Um, think about in America culture and what we have um that that ties us together culturally in 2026.
Um, I guess football, Panda Express, hamburgers. Yeah. Like like so I mean I I chose Pan Express purposefully like it should it should have raised like a wait but wait um so th this is like this is a very cultural thing. This is like a southern tradition. You can't slaughter a hog by yourself. You can. I've done it. I've done a cow by myself. I've done a pig by myself. It is uh awful. It is the longest weekend uh ever. It's so much work. Um you get done slaughtering the whole animal, cutting it up, and then you have to package the whole animal by yourself. So you you you gather people. um you you wait for a cold snap in the winter, you gather friends and family and you slaughter the hog and you split it up because it takes many hands and you and
it's a lot of food and you split it up and that is uh it it's very cultural um and it requires gathering. Yeah, that's awesome. So, like what does the weekend look like? We're going to show up Friday night kind of brief on the whole thing and then Saturday we get to work. Like what describe the process of the slaughter, the harvest, the butchering, the packing. Like what's the general flow of of that over a weekend? Uh good question. So yeah, Friday night just hang out, eat dinner, probably talk about how the weekend's going to go. Um, then Friday night for me means probably making up how the weekend's going to go. Um, and then Saturday we're gonna wake up and we'll probably do like optional join if you want to actually um see the taking of the animal and that'll
be quick. And then we'll get to work and we're going to scald and scrape the hog because we like to do skin on. And there are some factors where that can go wrong, you can do it poorly or incorrectly in the hair sets. And um if that is the case, then we'll skin it. And there's there's it's just different styles. Um so step one is get the get the hair and skin taken off because hogs are quite hairy. Um then you gut it, eviscerate it, and then you split it in two. And then from there you split each side into three and those are called primals. Um you got the the shoulder and the ham and then the middle which everyone loves which is bacon and ribs and pork chops etc. Um and from primals we will break it down and uh package it and cure it in some cases. There's um and we'll cook some of
it for the weekend and we will render lard and uh just talk about what each part of the hog is used for. And I've got some great books, the Foxfire series that everyone should keep an eye out for. I don't know if they're still produced, but they're definitely around. That has a lot of information on whole hog cooking. Um I don't eat brains, but there's recipes for scrambled eggs and brains. um in there. And uh yeah, we're just going to we're going to take it all the way through to package and uh plate in some cases. And um generally when you slaughter an animal, it's day one is cutting it up and forming a plan with what you want to do with what, and then day two is is packaging or rendering the lard or whatever. So, um, it's not as long of a day, but you got to tie up tie up the loose ends and take home your meat. And we'll make sausage. I mean,
it's a This one's probably nearing 400 lb. And then you get 70% of that in hanging weight, meaning no head, no guts, and then you get 70% of the hanging weight and take home. So, it's a it's a lot of work. It's a lot of meat, but we got a lot of hands. And that's why it's fun process. Yeah. I think it's cool how we're gonna not only harvest it, but eat off of it that weekend and then everybody gets to take a bunch of meat home. Yeah. And lard. like we all we well everyone will probably take home a jar of lard that we render um which is a cool process and uh make crackklins from that which the first time I ever made crackklins I I couldn't stop eating them and I had I like had like 10 pounds of crackklins and I was just making uh like BLTs with crackklins and I got so sick because I was just eating like fat only. They're so delicious. But
yeah, there there's a lot of fun stuff to do. It's it's like it's crafting with food and we'll make sausage. Uh we'll stuff in casings. We'll make loose sausage for breakfast. We'll probably cure and smoke some summer sausage, but I've got to figure out the logistics of curing time and smokers and such. But um we're going to do as much as we possibly can. and you're going to go home with some incredible meat. And I hope it doesn't ruin Kroger meat for you the rest of your life, but it probably will. Well, I hope it does ruin Kroger meat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. So, you know, we're kind of we're keeping this thing small. We'll do 10 people, which I think's good. I like more intimate events anyway. But I'd like to hear from you like who is the ideal guy for this type of an experience? Um, yeah. Like if you could describe that person, who do you think it is who would really
get the most out of this? Um, this could you could come at it from so many angles. This could be a food a food lover that just wants to like purely learn butchery. This could be someone interested in farming or homesteading um and self-sufficiency. It could be someone just uh looking for some culture and an event to do something with some guys and and come away with some some cool stuff like physical like meat and and maybe some gear to help them do it uh if they want to next time. It could be someone that cooks a lot of game and wants to learn how to butcher a deer because it all kind of translates. Um, so preparedness, culture, food, utility, and camaraderie. Just pick your poison. Just, you know, it could be just someone bored wants to get out of the house. It's a and and wants to learn something.
Yeah. Awesome. Well, cool guys. Well, thanks for joining us today. Uh again, this retreat, there's only one of these taking place this season, February 27th, which is a Friday, through March 1st, which is the Sunday, and that's happening in Dixon, Tennessee at Fairfax Farms, which is about an hour outside of Nashville. Um, if you guys are interested in attending this event, uh, you can visit our website. There'll also be a link in the description of this YouTube video where you can go read about the weekend, check it all out and if you're interested. Uh it's pretty obvious where you can sign up on the website. So, I hope to see you guys there. Facts, thank you so much for your time this morning, man. And I'm really excited. Of course. And if y'all want to see pictures of the farm and the operation, I don't post very much, but Fairfax Farms TN on Instagram will give you a picture of where it's going to take place. Um, but yeah. Yeah. I also I also cannot recommend enough. My freezer is stocked with meat from your farm. I eat the pork almost
every single day. So, if you're a person, if you eat steaks or ground beef or sausage, really anything, um, and you've been looking for a local farmer to buy those products from for years now, every piece of meat that I've eaten has come off of, at least the meat that's at my house has come from your farm. And it knows Yeah, man. It's always vote with vote with your dollar. If it's not me, pick another small farm. But vote with your dollar. Put your money where your mouth is. Awesome. Well, thanks again, Fax, and I'll uh I'll see you guys here in a few weeks. Thea.
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