Effects of Housing and Personality on Spatial Memory in Laying Hens

Understanding how housing conditions influence cognition and affective states is essential for improving welfare in farm animals. This experiment investigated whether moving hens into battery cages affects their spatial memory and reward-related motivation, and whether personality modulates these effects. Sixty Hy-Line Brown laying hens were reared in enriched aviary-like pens. At 18 weeks of age, half were transferred to battery cages (456 cm²/hen), while the remaining birds stayed cage-free (5333 cm²/hen) for 64 days before testing. Spatial memory was assessed using a modified holeboard task that required birds to find three baited cups among 16 locations. The dataset includes three comma-separated files: TEST.csv – Data recorded during the reward phase (from the start of the test until the hen found the three baited cups).Variables include visit order, latency, number of rewarded and unrewarded visits, and derived memory measures: working memory (WM), general working memory (GWM), and reference memory (RM). POST.csv – Data recorded during the non-reward period immediately following reward consumption.Variables include the number of empty-cup visits which was used to assess reward omission responses and motivation. BEHAVIOR_POST: Variables include the number of comfort-like behaviours (e.g., preening, wing-flapping, scratching), which were used to assess reward omission responses and motivation.