About Us
Welcome to our little corner of the pasture. We’re a small farm with a big passion for raising chicken the right way — slow grown, pasture raised, and handled with care from hatch to harvest. What started as a simple desire to feed our family better has grown into a mission to nourish our community with food that’s honest, humane, and full of real flavor. We’re glad you’re here and can’t wait to share our story with you.
A Texas Farm with a Simple Mission
At True Bird Farm, we raise poultry the way nature intended — outdoors on fresh Texas pasture, under open skies, with care for the birds and the land. Every step of our process is guided by honesty, stewardship, and a love for feeding people well.
Backyard Beginnings
We’re Ty and Sara Burk — the husband-and-wife team behind True Bird Farm. Ty’s a born-and-raised Texan with a heart for feeding people; Sara’s a public-health professional passionate about nutrient-dense food.
What began as a backyard flock in South Austin quickly became something bigger. In 2015, we started raising a handful of Red Dorking chickens — an old-world breed prized for both eggs and flavor. We never planned on running a business; we just wanted good chicken for our family and neighbors.
A Chef’s Discovery
Then fate intervened. Chef Mathew Peters — the first American to win the Bocuse d’Or — tasted our Red Dorkings and was blown away by the flavor. He even flew a few birds out to California for a Thomas Keller event.
Soon after, we hosted a Chef’s Dinner at our home, bringing together some of Austin’s best chefs to cook with our pasture raised birds. The community response was overwhelming — and that backyard experiment officially hatched into True Bird Farm.
Growing Roots in Driftwood
With help from the USDA Farm Service Agency and support from Ty’s family, we moved operations to Driftwood and began raising roughly 300 birds per week.
During Winter Storm Uri, we partnered with Chef Kevin Fink to serve hot meals to healthcare workers — a reminder that good food connects and sustains communities.
Today, our chicken appears on menus at Emmer & Rye, Canje, Hestia, Arlo Grey, Dai Due, Olamaie, LeRoy & Lewis, and Sour Duck Market, as well as weekly at three local farmers’ markets:
🐓 Texas Farmers Market – Mueller
🐓 SFC Sunset Valley
🐓 Dripping Springs Farmers Market
Expanding the Flock
In 2024, we expanded onto a second Driftwood property — over 70 acres of additional pasture — allowing us to double production and deepen our regenerative practices.
Farming isn’t without its challenges: there’s weather, mud, and plenty of humility. But with each season, we’re reminded that the effort is worth it. Healthy birds, healthy soil, healthy people — that’s the cycle we believe in.
Adding Good People
Originally from Seattle, Hudson Keagle and Jessica Markiewicz have called Central Texas home since 2021. Jessica transitioned from restaurant management into regenerative agriculture after completing the Farmer Starter program at Farmshare Austin in 2023, where she deepened her passion for healthy, sustainable food systems.
Hudson left a customer service career to pursue cooking, spending years in restaurant kitchens before becoming True Bird’s Head Chef. He now leads our value-added program and continues to cook as a sought-after private chef in the community.
In addition to helping run True Bird’s farm and kitchen, Hudson and Jessica also operate Keaglewicz Farms, where they grow custom microgreens for local chefs and restaurants.
