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Hey my name is vic and i am new to this site and to macaws. i have a blue and gold.. overall he is VERY sweet. only abt 6 m/o. my only problem is that he likes to hang out on top of his cage but gets very very aggressive when up there. its about the only time he will bite is when he is up there. i was thinking its mayb a territorial thing or because he was higher up then me. except... i have a chin-up bar attached to my door that he hangs out on sometimes and its higher then his cage is but i have never had any problems with him up there. i have only had him home for almost a month and was just looking for some advice. like i said that is this only time he wont step up, he will bite very hard and i dont even know what to do about that. past few days i just wouldn'tr let him up there but was hoping there was a way i can teach him to stay up there and not be a butt hole.

Train him to step onto a hand-held perch so you can get him down w/o putting your flesh in harm's way. Hold an almond or some other treat just close enough to you that he must step onto the perch to reach the treat 'til he's learned to step onto it readily. You're right that the difference between the cagetop and your chin-up bar is that the cage is HIS. If you can't teach him to use the hand-held perch, you'll want to keep him off that cagetop 'til he's better trained.

Enjoy him!

I breed three species of Macaws: Scarlet, Greenwing and Blue & Gold.

My opinion is that you have a little attitude going on but I wouldn't' say he is getting cage aggressive. He is testing you on boundaries. He doesn't want to go back into the cage. If you have been grabbing him and placing him from the cage top into the cage he knows this! Try getting him from top of his cage and place him on a standing perch or anything else but directly back into the cage. I had one like this as well, usually when they are babies, and I "scooted" him off the cage top with a feather duster brightly colored. He would go to the side of the cage where he would step up on my arm for movement.

For the record: I would never, never, never use "the stick-perch" method for training my macaw. Just my own two cents but I've seen this in other birds and those which I have rescued-fostered-or took in. Once you train your Macaw to step up on your arm DO NOT USE ANYTHING ELSE, you will regret it! Save the stick-perch for extremely aggressive or breeder birds that you can not handle any other way. But once you get them to stick perch might as well give up on putting your arm up there because they usually do it "one way or the other."