2025 AHH / BHS Drayton Manor Conference

Saturday, 15 March 2025 - Sunday, 16 March 2025

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.

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
  
  
• Dr Gerardo Garcia, Curator of Lower Verts and Inverts, Chester Zoo - Use of accelerometers in captive Komodo dragons as tool to assess welfare pattern of activities and use of environment PLUS 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 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

Practical Workshops

Practical workshops on various topics will also be taking place during the weekend. Full details will be available as soon as we've finalised the details.

If you book for the conference, you'll be contacted at later date with a link to book on to the workshops ; the workshops are included in the ticket pricing - there'll be no extra charge for attending these.

Student Opportunities

We want your research posters for display and presentation at Conference - see below for details and the poster submission form:

• Guidance for Student Research Poster Submissions
• Student Research 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