BackgroundThe goat cervical spine represents a promising alternative for human specimen in spinal implant testing, but the range of motion (ROM) of the spine is lacking. We aimed to evaluate and compare the ROMs of fresh goat and human mid-cervical spine specimens.MethodsTen fresh adult healthy male goat cervical spine specimens (G group) and ten fresh frozen adult healthy human cervical spine specimens (average age: 49.5 ± 12.1 years; 6 males, 4 females) (H group) were included. The ROMs of each specimen were biomechanically tested at the C2–3, C3–4, C4–5and C2–5levels at 1.5 Nm and 2.5 Nm torque and recorded. The ROMs of different levels of goat cervical samples were compared to those of human cervical samples using an independent samplettest. Significance was defined as aPvalue of less than 0.05.ResultsAt the C2–3, C3–4and C4–5levels, the ROMs of the goat cervical spine were significantly larger than those of the human cervical spine in all directions except extension under 1.5 Nm torque; under 2.5 Nm torque, the ROMs of the goat cervical spine at the C2–3and C3–4levels were significantly larger than those of humans in the pure movement of flexion, lateral bending and axial rotation, and the ROMs for axial rotation of the goat specimens and human specimens were comparable. Under both 1.5 Nm and 2.5 Nm torque, the goat cervical spine displayed a much greater ROM in all directions at the C2–5level.ConclusionsSeveral segmental ROMs of fresh goat and human cervical spine specimens were recorded in this investigation. We recommend using goat cervical specimens as an alternative to fresh human cervical specimens in future studies when focusing only on the ROMs of C2–3, C3–4and C4–5in flexion under a torque of 1.5 Nm or the ROMs of C2–3and C3–4in flexion and rotation under a torque of 2.5 Nm.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13018-023-03896-1.