About Us
Animals First.crazy for ekkies and more
Find out more about us and our history right here
about gina
Hi, I’m Gina! Born in the USA, I have called the Netherlands my home for more than 16 years now. I’ve been owned by almost every type of animal you can imagine in my life, including: parrots, piranhas, African cichlids, a snake, lizards, a chicken, rabbits, turtles, dogs, a horse, a goat, etc.). I used to volunteer in dog (fostering miniature pinscher) and bird rescue (cockatiels) in the US before moving here.
As you can image, I’ve always been passionate about animals and their welfare. This really kicked off when as a young child of 8, my father brought home a rescued slaughter-house chicken which escaped the transport truck. I promptly named him Lucky and cared for him for years as a free-range chicken pet at home. He was beakless and declawed but lived a happy and full life with us.
For a brief time, I even started a nonprofit cockatiel (valkparkiet in Dutch) bird rescue in the United States because so many of them were seen as disposable pets and I felt so heartbroken they didn’t get the long care and life they deserved.
Next to this, professionally I’m a Marketing Director for a life science management consultant firm and have been designing and building brands and their marketing strategy for more than 20 years.
aBOUT OSCAR
Hi, I’m Oscar! Born and raised in the Netherlands. All my life I grew up with animals. I didn’t have a lot of different kinds, but we always had dogs in the house. When I was young I loved every single animal and I took every opportunity to pet and hold as many different kinds I came across. Even the ones people are often afraid of like snakes, reptiles… even tarantulas!
But, I always had a deep love for birds and thought they were fascinating animals. I sadly never had the chance to have one at home until I met Gina. While she has many type of birds in the US and Netherlands, together, we started with 3 lovebirds for us and as a gift to the human kid in our home, Jasper.
We couldn’t stop there, and realized quite quickly that we wanted bigger parrots and to provide them with a home that they can live out the rest of their long lives. We also decided that we wanted to go for rescue birds instead of baby birds, because we feel that we actually mean something to their life.
We watched hours and hours of documentaries and read an insane amount of studies / websites to inform us about what species we liked the most and fit our lifestyle before we came to find the perfect click with the mighty and unique Eclectus.
Professionally, I’ve been working in IT for over 10 years in all kinds of different companies. From smaller companies to enormous multi nationals which I still work in to this day.
our story
Our story with OG Solutions began when the two of us realized that our long-time love for animals could be easily combined with our professional experience in brands, tech, and web development into a side passion-hobby to help other animal enthusiasts bring their passion to life online.
Every since the first day our adopted pair of Eclectus (Roma and Rima) joined our family, we just instinctually knew that was our future passion. These two taught us so much and fueled our passion to help more of these insanely unique and extraordinary parrot species to live their best lives.
We got involved with Hope for Wings, am amazing non-profile Dutch organization focused on the rehoming of parrots in need. From this foundation, we found and adopted Luna, and that led us to take the decision to help the organization to flourish even more through their work.
our feathered kids
Roma the Green Monster
9Roma is our crazy young 3-year old Red-Sided teenager who literally thinks he rules our house (often times he does, just don’t tell him that please!).
Fully flighted, unable to sit still, loud (120 db ouch), speaking 4 languages (Dutch, Turkish, Russian, and Azerbaijan). he’s both a delight and a handful, as many male ekkies are.
He came to us on the tail end of a wrong diet and had black and discolored feathers as a result. Within 2 months he was on the right mix of veggie 80% chop and we’re still impatiently waiting on his molt to see some of his true colors come through.
He taught us so much about bird behavior, diet requirements, puberty (haha) and training. He’s the only of our flock to learn tricks and his favorite thing in the world is flight training, and he’s a impressive flyer!
Princess Rima
Introducing the Princess! She’s a beautiful and sweet, timid, and small female Ekkie. Previously thought to be 4 years old, we discovered she was actually 16 years old through her leg band. We suspect she’s a Solomon Island Eclectus or a mix due to her thicker eye ring and smaller stature.
She came to us with mostly an unknown history, due to the discrepancy in age and barbering her chest and neck. This is why she has nearly no blue feathers.
Within 2 months on the right diet, we rarely find feathers destroyed at the bottom of her cage now and have high hopes to see her flourish.
She sings opera (seriously!) and has a sweet adorable-sounding female voice and short list of words that she repeats as she’s falling asleep.
She taught us about feather destruction, diet optimization, sub-species, and personality differences in the sexes.
Queen Luna
Oh the Queen has arrived! Queen Luna is our first rescue through Hope for Wings. She came to us as a 12 year old female Ekkie who wasn’t in the right place anymore.
She used to be completely hand-tame but lost that in the last few years. She’s a chunky (600grams oh my!) but extremely beautiful fully-feathered Red-Sided girl – and officially converted to the right veggie chop within 2 weeks.
She has the most beautiful voice, that she shocked us by displaying within a few days of joining our flock. Between her whistling of antiquate tunes, she has proven to have the largest vocabulary so far of them all (more than 20 Dutch words/phrases!)
We’re working slowly to gain her trust through target training and that’s going really well. When she steps up for us is unknown, until then we continue rehabilitating her and training her and will let her choose… on her own terms.
our Manifesto
We believe that animals deserve the same rights as humans.
We trust in science and the zoological community.
We want every pet to have the opportunity to live their absolute best lives (for parrots this could mean outliving their humans).
We have the utmost respect for volunteers in animal rescue groups for the work they do and sacrifices they make for the finding animals their forever homes.
We are especially dedicated to brightening the future of parrots in need.
We take great pride in being able to give back to the community.
We are committed to making the lives of Eclectus parrots better through education, welfare work, and volunteering of our time.