Katie

Owner / Manager

Katie is the owner of KBN Reptiles and has experience working with many different animals. Studying Animal Care at Moreton Morrell College, she then moved on to working in ‘normal’ pet shops, Stratford Upon Avon Butterfly Farm and ending up in a fish and reptile shop before opening KBN in 2011. 

Animals have been at the front of her interests from a very young age with her Dad Nigel taking her on country walks, collecting butterflies, various insects and talking for hours about different animals. Then came Gary the grasshopper to start the real journey!

When she isn’t working, she enjoys watching films, reading books and snuggling up on the sofa with the dogs.

Reptile keeping is her passion and animals are her life, she has been keeping reptiles for over 20 years and working with them since 2003. She opened KBN Reptiles to educate people about the amazing world of reptiles. She has a wide range of knowledge in most areas of reptile keeping including lizards, snakes, chelonia and some invertebrates - Millipedes and Jumping spiders being firm favourites!

Ash

Assistant Manager

In 2015, Ash started regularly coming in to the shop with his family after moving from down south. In 2017, Ash asked if he could volunteer 1 day a week to gain some more experience and then became our Saturday boy while he was at college studying Science. After leaving college, he spent more time here volunteering and as his confidence grew, he decided this was the industry for him. In late 2019, he started working here full time on an apprenticeship with Moreton Morrell College finishing in early 2022.

Ash has lived with Katie since 2020 and enjoys playing World of Warcraft and spending time with the dogs when he isn’t at work. He also loves collecting Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit memorabilia.

In October 2022, he was given the opportunity to become Assistant Manager which he gladly took on. He has a real passion for snakes and owns our breeding trio of Vietnamese Blue Beauty Ratsnakes, pair of Spotted pythons, Corn snakes and our Leopard gecko colony. Ash also runs our ever growing Invertebrate section and particularly loves Tarantulas.

Nigel

Volunteer / Quality Control

Nigel is Katie's dad, he helps in the shop 4 days a week and can normally be found sitting next to the livefood shelves. He is quality control when it comes to our livefood stocks and maintains the high quality that we pride ourselves on, if you ever need information on how to keep your livefood alive longer, just ask him! Nigel creates the bags of substrate that make up our wide range of substrate available and also specialises in Bearded dragons.

When he is not working at KBN, he is usually busy at Leamington Football Club feeding the wildlife and tending to the pitch. He has a great love of wildlife and will happily advise anyone on food for their local hedgehogs and robins!!

Gemma

Social Media Creator

Gemma came to our shop with her family in August 2023 on her travels of the UK to explore as many reptile shops as possible. Her and her partner Matt then became firm regulars visiting almost every Saturday with their son Dexter who is non verbal autistic and can usually be found sitting behind or under the till on a Saturday with his snacks and his cartoons playing. Gemma started helping out around the shop on Saturdays and when our previous Social media lady left, Gemma took the very daunting job of creating features and maintaining our social media pages.

Gemma and Matt have a good collection of animals with cats, dogs, snakes, inverts, specialising in mantis and isopods. If you’ve ever met Gemma, you’ll know all about her Bearded Dragon ‘Beans’.

Jess

Shop Assistant

Jess started here as a work placement from Moreton Morrell College in August 2022 and in August 2023, we employed her on a Saturday. Jess likes to read books, especially horror. She has 2 snails, lots of woodlice, a jumping spider called Gerry, a terrapin 2 cats and a dog as well. She loves all animals and is enjoying learning about the care of different species whilst doing her third year at college.

Debbie

Volunteer / Snack Provider

Debbie is Katie's mum, she helps out in the shop on Thursdays. She is responsible for feeding the animals (and most importantly, staff) and breeding the stick insects that we sell. She is usually getting shouted at by Nigel for various reasons, usually she’s dropped something!!

Matt

Saturday Volunteer

Matt is Gemma’s partner and helps on a Saturday with cleaning and general maintenance in the snake room and handling the animals. He is very enthusiastic about his snakes and will happily talk for hours about his Boas – Brazilian rainbow boa and Hogg island boa.

Chester

Saturday Morning Dog

Chester is owned by our regular customers Stef and Martin. He comes in (most) Saturday mornings to see us and help greet customers. He was born in 2020 and is obsessed with toys - balls being the best thing in the world! He will sit and shout until his mum and dad find where he has hidden it and then throw his ball for him most nights! He enjoys going on bike rides with his dad and even has a special seat on the bike so he can enjoy the day relaxing like the king that he is. Chester is a real people dog and loves to speak to everyone who comes in.

Kane

Owner

Kane studied computer science in his home town of Sheffield and kept reptiles as a hobby at home. He soon discovered that his passion was growing and wanted to pursue a career working with reptiles full time. A chance meeting with Katie saw the opportunity of this becoming a reality and in December 2014 he moved down to join the KBN team becoming part owner in 2016. He has brought with him a wealth of experience in keeping and breeding Asian ratsnakes. His areas of expertise also extend to invertebrates, Tarantulas specifically and also monitor lizards.

In October 2020, Kane got the opportunity to become a Development QA Technician at Codemasters, he has now moved on to be a Development QA Engineer. His new role is creating and developing automated testing to ensure game features work correctly, developing new features and assisting the game developers.

Aaron

Occasional Volunteer

In March 2017, Aaron came in to buy a Bearded Dragon from Katie. In September 2019, they got married! Aaron helps out in the shop when he isn’t working for West Midlands Ambulance service as a Paramedic. He particularly enjoys talking to people about his groups of geckos including African Fat tail geckos, West Indian leopard geckos and not forgetting his Bearded Dragon Artoria.

Chris

Occasional Volunteer

Chris is Ashs’ older brother and will usually be found helping out on the till when an extra pair of hands are needed. He currently owns a Boa constrictor but hopes to get more soon!

Poppy

Poppy is a Staffordshire Bull terrier and belongs to Katie and Aaron. She is a rescue from Dogs trust and came to really start their family in early 2018. She is a bundle of energy and when in work, is usually found shouting at customers if the aren’t giving her their undivided attention. When she’s at home, she’s always found under a snuggly blanket somewhere!

Onyx

Onyx is a Collie cross who belongs to Katie and Aaron and is Poppy’s younger sister. She is a street dog from Romania and joined the family in late 2018 from LoveUnderdogs. She was hit by a car while living on the streets but thankfully fully recovered. She can have bad anxiety some days but Poppy has really helped her confidence with speaking to new people.

Hilda

Hilda is a Golden Retriever cross who belongs to Ash. Hilda and Ash live with Katie, Aaron, Poppy and Onyx. Hilda, like Onyx, is a Street dog from Romania who went to live with a family in London, whilst she was in London, she escaped from her family and was living in a rubbish tip for 4 months by herself. She was Hit by a car in those 4 months but has recovered since. Hilda came to join the family in 2021 from LoveUnderdogs. She can be very shy and has bad anxiety and trust issues when meeting new people but Poppy and Onyx are helping her with her confidence and she is becoming a lovely yellow dog!