2025 AHH / BHS Drayton Manor Conference
Saturday, 15 March 2025 - Sunday, 16 March 2025
The AHH / BHS conference has become established as a major international event, focusing on the care and breeding of reptiles and amphibians. Our aim is to provide a platform for sharing best practise and latest thinking across both private and professional communities involved in herpetological husbandry. Delegates from the UK, Europe, and beyond attend for a two day program of talks, networking, sponsor exhibitions, and the ever-popular zoo tour.
Following the great success of the 2024 event we're pleased to announce that the 2025 will be held at Drayton Manor. Huge thanks to everyone who attended in 2024 and completed the feedback survey - your input will help in shaping next year's event.
About the Conference
The AHH / BHS conference has become established as a major international event, focusing on the care and breeding of reptiles and amphibians. Our aim is to provide a platform for sharing best practise and latest thinking across both private and professional communities involved in herpetological husbandry. Delegates from the UK, Europe, and beyond attend for a two day program of talks, networking, sponsor exhibitions, and the ever-popular zoo tour.
Meet our speakers! 2025 Conference Speakers
What to Expect
New to the event? Watch the 2024 Conference Video by keynote speaker Jerry Fife.
Explore the 2024 Conference Program to give you an idea of what to expect.
Ticket Information
2025 Conference booking now open! Click on the 'Book Tickets' button below to see the options. Prices includes all refreshments during the day for whichever day(s) you book for, including lunch.
BHS members: get discount prices of £75 for the full weekend or £40 for either Saturday or Sunday only - to get access to these special prices, you'll need to be logged into the website as a BHS member. If any problems with this, contact
Special dietary requirements: please be sure to add this info in the provided box during the booking process.
Saturday evening event: Includes dinner held at the venue, a talk and a quiz - should be a great evening and not to be missed! ( this has to be booked separately during ticket purchase, it's NOT included in the conference attendance tickets.)
Accommodation
The Resort includes a 4 star hotel a couple of minutes walk from the conference venue. The resort has plenty of parking both at the hotel and next to the conference venue.
We've agreed discount Bed and Breakfast rates for delegates for the weekend as follows: Standard room, single or double occupancy - £90.00 per night. To book at these rates, you'll need to call the Resort Hotel on +44 1827 285551 and ask for the conference delegate rate.
Tickets to the conference do NOT include access to the resort itself ; we expect - but can't guarantee - that the resort will in any case be closed for normal visiting during the conference weekend
Provisional Program
A full program will be available as soon as we can but meantime the organising team are hard at work sorting out speakers and sponsors. We already have some great speakers confirmed with these provisional talk topics:
- Bart Spanoghe, from the DGHT - 15 years of keeping and breeding Lacertids PLUS Melanistic Eyed/Ocellated Lizards and Lizard Diseases
- Paul Tapley - "Have I got newts for you..adventures with Neurergus kaiseri"
- Dr Marie Kubiak, Director, Evolution Exotics - "Follicles, the silent killer - reptile reproductive problems"
- Tom Marriott, Editor, Exotics Keeper Magazine - "Integrating wild observations into captive care"
- Dr Mark O'Shea - topic TBC
- Francis Cosquieri - Acclimating new reptiles
- Lori Torini - live from the U.S. - Next level reptile behaviour and training
- Erin Rickman (Hills), Assistant Professor, Animal Studies, Eckerd College - live from the U.S. - New and Future Research for Assessing the Impact of Care on the Behaviour and Welfare of Captive Reptiles
- Chas Thompson, REPTA - REPTA update
- Kieran Richardson from Chester Zoo - - Update on a number of recent Chester captive breeding successes including Calumma parsonii, Boana picturata, Prhynoides asper & Uroplatus henkelii
- Ben Owens, Bangor University - The care, breeding and natural history of the spectacular Sailfin lizards, Hydrosaurus spp with observations from the wild
- Jane Williams, Tortoise South East - author of major new book on tortoise care and welfare https://tinyurl.com/Tortoise-Husbandry
- Grainne Hartigan, Zoo Liasion, Nature's SAFE - " The Cool Future of Herpetological Conservation" - Wildlife bio-banking - indefinite storage of reproductive cells and cell lines of endangered species
Draft program for the weekend now available here: AHH / BHS Conference Draft Program
A more user friendly and printable version will be made available as soon as we can....but this gives you an intial plan of the two days
Meet our speakers! 2025 Conference Speakers
Practical Workshops
As a new initiative, five practical workshops led by experts will be taking place on Sunday - you can see details of these below.
If you book for the conference, you'll then receive an emailed link to book on to the workshops ; the workshops are included in the ticket pricing - there'll be no extra charge for attending these. Please note that a delegate will be able to attend a maximum of two of the five workshops and that there's a maximum limit of 25 people per workshop.
Exotics Vet Q&A
Put your reptile health questions to Dr Marie Kubiak!
Dr Marie Kubiak of Evolution Exotics will lead an open Q&A session about reptile health and wellbeing - a great opportunity to direct your questions to an exotics specialist veterinarian and one of our speakers!
Herp Lighting Lab
Gain hands-on practical experience on lighting set ups!
Tom Griffiths of Tomaskas will lead this interactive workshop where teams will have the chance to build a lighting rig for a surprise reptile or amphibian. Learn about lighting layouts, lamp choices, and thermostat use, through a bit of fun!
A great way to engage in CPD for stores and zoo workers, and to get feedback from a Professional Lighting Consultant. Some individuals will need to use a drill, but there's absolutely no experience necessary. Suitable for beginners and experts alike!
Sunlight Power Density Metering
A unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor with some of the latest thinking!
Roman Muryn, Ethan Parrott and Tom Wells will lead this workshop
A practical use of the sunlight Power Density meter (ISM 400) demonstrating measuring sunlight light, then finding data on the web, and applying that knowledge to an enclosure
"We shall take a reading outside, chase it up on the web. We will compare what we measured with what we forecast and then make decisions on how we would set up lighting intensities in a vivarium based on best practices. On the day we could extend the idea for a Bearded Dragon or any animal.
There will be technical content such that keepers with animals knowledge gaps can add to their data armoury when they get home or to their collection.
A tool has been developed that enables readings to be mapped on a pc and an iso-irradiance/illuminance charts to be produced and shared easily - this will be shared.
Ethan Parrott from Marwell Zoo will share how to measure irradiation/illumination in zoo sized enclosures and the team will discuss how iso-irradiance mapping could be approached. A demonstration will use the iso-irradiance charting tool (on a smaller scale) during the talk"
Bio-Active Set-Ups
Learn how to set up a Bio-Active vivarium with Zoo Med
Cyril Geoffray of Zoo Med will lead this workshop focusing on Bio-Active set-ups.
Cyril will demonstrate key ingredients, materials and success factors involved in creating successful Bio-Active vivaria and terraria. A great opportunity to draw on Cyril's years of experience in this popular topic!
Creating a COSHH Risk Assessment
Learn about the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health regulations in context of reptile and amphibian keeping - from the experts at Safe4!
Our sponsors Safe4 will lead this vaulable workshop focusing on COSHH - of particular importance to professional or trade keepers but also relevant to the private keeper.
The workshop will include a presentation and then some practical work going through an SDS and identifying which parts are relevant for a COSH assessment.
Elements covered will include:
- Introduction to COSHH
- Key Aspects of COSHH
- Examples of Hazardous Substances
- Consequences of Non-Compliance
- Understanding Disinfectant Products and COSHH Compliance
- Common Risks with Disinfectants
- Hazard symbols and phrases
Student Opportunities
We want your research posters for display and presentation at Conference - see below for details and the poster submission form:
Students whose posters are accepted for display get free conference admission for the weekend plus a £50 contribution to travelling costs - together with a great opportunity to showcase their research to a targeted and relevant audience of 160+ people
See examples of posters displayed at previous conferences on our Student Posters page.
IMPORTANT: a successful application to display a poster at the conference will be considered as permission for photos of the poster to be taken and used in future promotional activities by and for the BHS and future conferences.
Questions? If you have any queries that are not covered in the information above, just email
| Event Date | Saturday 15th March 2025 9:00 am |
| Event End Date | Sunday 16th March 2025 5:00 pm |
| Location | Drayton Manor Park Hotel |
Ticket Information
| Ticket Type | Price |
|---|---|
| Conference - full weekend | £85.00 |
| Conference - Saturday only | £45.00 |
| Conference - Sunday only | £45.00 |
| Saturday - Evening Event | £30.00 |