Mount Beckworth Free Range farm owners Chris Peel and Diane Snell are hoping to raise more than $36,000 through a crowd funding website to buy a mobile van and establish a store and cool-room on their property. 

The pair began the campaign after their Daylesford butchery, Spa Venison, closed in April.

“We were not sure what we were going to do,” Mr Peel said. 

“Customers were asking if they could still get produce from us.”

If successful, the ethical farmers will sell their pigs, geese, goats, chickens and free-range eggs direct to the public. 

The farm will be one of the few in the Ballarat region to establish an on-site butcher. 

As of Thursday night, the public had pledged $7150 via crowd funding website Pozible. 

The public has until December 22 to make a pledge, otherwise the project will not continue. 

Mr Peel and Ms Snell have set up a reward system for those pledging donations.

One person has pledged $2500 to the cause in exchange for a five-course degustation lunch for 10 people. 

“Some have requested they did not want a reward,” Ms Snell said. 

“A lot of people are Spa Venison customers, some are friends, some we don’t know at all.”

Mr Peel said the on-site butcher would help maintain their ethical farming status.

“Our animals spend all their life free range and when they get to market, it does not matter,” Mr Peel said. 

The pair no longer farm or sell venison because their local abattoir stopped processing the meat.

The next closest abattoir, in Myrtleford, was 400 kilometres from their farm.

To pledge your donation, visit pozible.com/fund/support/188009/0/-1

kara.irving@fairfaxmedia.com.au