Terms of Sale

To avoid misunderstandings and disappointment, please read our goat reservation process and other terms of sale information before reserving a goat from Antiquity Oaks.

Goat Prices 2023

Doelings (female baby goats) out of first fresheners are sold at $500. After a doe’s first freshening, pricing may go up or may stay at $500, depending on our evaluation of the doe’s mammaries, milk production, and show quality. Bucklings (male baby goats) are available only out of does who have good production, good mammaries, and are easy to milk; otherwise, they are wethered (castrated) and sold as pets for $100 each. We will not sell a buck as a buck unless we would be willing to use him in our own breeding program, which is why we castrate most bucklings and sell them as pets.

Find our Kidding Schedule on the Home page.

Reserving Your Antiquity Oaks Kid

If you’d like to buy a baby goat, please fill out our Goat Purchase Application first so that we can get to know you and your goat dreams. We will be in touch within a few days to let you know if we have any goats that fit your goals and your farm.

Once you’ve been approved and decided that you want to reserve a goat (or two or three), a reservation deposit of $100 is required for each goat. Please let us know the name of the kid you want to purchase or the gender of the kid you want to reserve if not born yet, along with the name of the dam. The deposit is non-refundable. You can pay with your credit card through PayPal by clicking on the link below.

The deposit is non-refundable unless we are unable to provide you with the specific kid you wanted, such as specific gender or breeding. I do not take deposits based upon color of hair or eyes. Many kids are sold before they even hit the ground, so if you have your heart set on a particular breeding, it is best to put down a deposit, so you are not disappointed if someone else buys the kid. Reservations are filled in the order that deposits are received, and we often have multiple reservations on individual breedings.

I will take up to two reservations on a first freshener and up to three reservations on senior does. A reservation is not a guarantee that you will get a kid from a specific breeding because we have no control over how many bucks and does are produced from a specific breeding. For example, if you have the second doe reservation on a specific breeding, and the goat only has one doe, we will not be able to fulfill your request. In that case, you can move your deposit to a different goat, or we can give you a refund.

We reserve the right to retain any kid in our herd, and if you do not have a second choice, we will provide a refund. We have only done this once in the years we’ve been raising goats, so it is certainly not something to worry about under normal circumstances, but it is something to be aware of. Under normal circumstances, I decide at breeding which kids I will be retaining each year; however, in 2011, we had our first c-section, and I felt a need to retain the two surviving kids that were born, because the dam was one of our best milkers, she was seven years old, and we had only retained one doe from her so far.

When can you take your baby goat home?

Dam-raised kids can go to their new homes when they weigh 20 pounds, but NO earlier than two months of age. We will be happy to keep them here until they are three months old because we feel strongly that they will be healthier if they get their dam’s milk for a longer period of time. We are in no rush to push our kids out the door because we want them to have the healthiest start possible, so please do not ask us to let you take your kid home until it has reached these milestones.

Our Kid-Rearing Philosophy

Almost all of our kids are dam-raised. It is against our philosophy to take babies away from their mothers and raise them on a bottle unless there is some extraordinary circumstance. For years that meant things like premature birth, hypothermia, dam rejecting baby, etc. These types of situations are truly extraordinary, as one of the things we like about Nigerians is their excellent mothering ability. However, in recent years, we have had more does giving birth to quadruplets and quintuplets and even first fresheners giving birth to triplets or more.

Because goats only have two teats, and younger does don’t produce as much as older does, we may also bottle-feed kids if we are concerned that they may not get enough milk while being raised on mom. So we do have a varying number of bottle babies available each year, usually somewhere between two and four annually. We realize that some people believe goats must be bottle-fed if you want friendly goats; however, we disagree. Our herd includes both dam-raised and bottle-fed adults, and you can’t tell them apart based on their personalities. If you want friendly goats, you need to spend time with them, and if you don’t have time to spend with them, then you shouldn’t be getting them in the first place.

Goat Registration: ADGA, AGS, and NDGA

All breeding quality animals are sold with registration papers or with a registration application with ADGA. They can also be registered with AGS and NDGA. Our tattoo sequence is registered with all three registries. We will not knowingly sell any animal with papers if it has a serious fault or disqualification. We cannot guarantee mature height on a kid, but none of our goats are over the maximum height.

All goats are disbudded or polled (hornless), which is required for showing. Because horned and hornless goats should not be raised together, you need to contact us before kids are born if you have a horned herd and need horned kids.

Disease Testing Requests

If you want testing performed prior to purchasing an animal, please let us know when you first contact us, because testing may take as long as three weeks to accomplish, depending upon the vet’s and the lab’s schedule. You are responsible for all costs associated with testing, and prices will start around $100 for one test. All of our goats tested negative for CAE, CL, and Johnes in fall 2022, and we have ha whole herd negative tests since 2005.

Goat Names

Like most serious goat breeders, we name our registered kids based upon a pattern or system. People have all sorts of systems, but in our case, each doe has a theme. For example, Carmen was named after the opera, and all of her babies were named after opera characters. Carmen got her name because her mother, Dancy, had a musical theme, so all of her babies were named after something musical. One of Carmen’s daughters was Lizzie Borden — yes, there was an opera about Lizzie Borden. Lizzie’s babies are named after outlaws. One of her daughters was Bonnie Parker, and Bonnie’s babies followed a Great Depression theme. Get the idea?

Why do we do this? To keep everyone straight! People are always commenting on how they don’t know how I can keep all the names and pedigrees straight on nearly 30 goats. Well, I wouldn’t if I didn’t have some sort of system. Not only can I keep straight who’s who on the farm, but I will also recognize names of goats that are sold. So, if someday I see one of my goats on a show list or a milk test list, I’ll immediately know who the parents were just by looking at the name.

Of course, you can call your goat whatever you want. We have bought a few goats that had such odd names, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to call them that — like Thrill and Hot Rod. If you feel strongly about a goat’s name, please be sure to inform us when you first contact us. We are always happy to have help coming up with names, and we’ve been very happy with some of the names that buyers have selected. If you’d like to help name your goat, just let us know, and we’ll tell you what the dam’s theme is, and you can do all the research to find a suitable name.

Out-of-State Purchases

We are located in Illinois and although we used to ship goats by air, we no longer do so because it would eat up almost a whole day getting the goat to the airport, waiting in lines, and so on.

All out-of-state travel – require a health certificate, which costs $70 to $150 as of January 2022, and is subject to change without notice, since this is what our vet charges us, and she could change her prices at any time.