It goes without saying: A frat house bathroom is no place for hens.

These four chickens were likely every bit as bewildered as the students who freed them from their locked stall. And while the rescuers tried to care for their “little sisters,” winter break threw a wrench in their plans. Most of the students went home, leaving one to make the hour-long drive to tend to the birds every few days.

But it wasn’t enough. Hens need regular, appropriate care. The students couldn’t take them home—and college housing wasn’t exactly built with chickens’ needs in mind. The girls were also skinny and had profound feather loss; they needed a safe place to land. Fortunately, Farm Sanctuary had space at our Acton shelter. Towards the end of December, we welcomed Polly, Barbarella, Shoshanna, and Izzy home.

The girls are leghorns—a breed exploited for egg production. So while we may never know who brought our new friends to that California fraternity house (or why), we have a good idea where their lives began. And contrary to popular belief, egg production isn’t harmless.

Most chicks—whether they end up on factory farms or backyard flocks—come from industrial hatcheries. When these cute, fluffy chicks are just a day old, workers sort them by sex. Millions of fragile baby boy chicks are gassed, suffocated, or ground up alive each year, simply because they’re male—roosters don’t make eggs and this breed isn’t hefty enough for profitable meat production.

Female chicks (and any misidentified males) are prepped for shipping. They often travel by mail—up to 72 hours in one stretch—without proper food, water, or protection from hot or cold weather. When shipping delays or errors occur, these babies can starve to death or suffocate.

Those who do survive face even more peril. Industrial breeds, like our new girls, may spend their lives crammed in battery cages with other stressed, ailing, or dying birds. Even hens on “cage-free” farms don’t have proper space; they’re packed by the thousands in long, windowless buildings with limited access to the outdoors, if any.

Like menstruating humans, chickens release eggs as part of their hormonal cycle. Yet a hen’s life is only worth as many eggs as she can lay.

Through genetic manipulation, hens now lay more eggs than their bodies can handle. Today, a hen can lay more than 280 eggs annually, compared to roughly 75 in 1925 (and compared to wild hens, who lay about 15 eggs per year). This puts excessive strain on their bodies, causing a myriad of issues, from prolapses to reproductive cancers.

Unfortunately, these hens rarely get the care they need. And within a year or two, once their egg production declines, they’re considered “spent” and are sent to slaughter. In contrast, in a Sanctuary setting, chickens can live up to a decade—some even longer! Not only their needs are met, but we work to give them a life full of enrichment and make their welfare top priority.

At Sanctuary, we won’t eat these girls’ eggs. For starters, we don’t wish to objectify animals by placing value solely on a substance that their bodies make. (Even in the best of situations—where people keep rescued chickens as pets and allow them to live out their natural lives—if eggs are part of the transaction, the rescue is for the person, and not the hens.)

But also, these girls will actually be spared from laying eggs. We stop harmful egg production by fitting Barbarella, Izzy, Polly, and Shoshanna with hormonal implants. These can slow or even prevent the health repercussions that come from being bred to lay so many eggs. We’ll change the implants every three to four months (or as needed) for the rest of their reproductive lives.

Within their first month at Sanctuary, Polly, Barbarella, Shoshanna, and Izzy were already looking and feeling better. Their feathers are growing, and they’re gradually putting on healthy weight. And once their health checks came back clear, we introduced them to our main flock. They’re settling in well and making new friends, though they continue spending much of their time together. They’re forever free to stretch their wings, bask in the sunshine, and snuggle up close with their friends in the flock.

Polly, Barbarella, Shoshanna, and Izzy are more than a product or a college prank—and now these four sisters have a legacy of love.