FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) — A California farm animal sanctuary is spending a small fortune to send two cargo planes to north-central Iowa to rescue 1,000 chickens from an egg farm.

Animal Place workers loaded the planes Saturday morning at the Fort Dodge, Iowa, airport with more than 60 crates of the hens to fly back to the group’s sanctuary near Grass Valley in northern California. The organizations’ director, Kim Sturla, said Friday that the hens came from a nearby egg farm that is going out of business.

The farm had planned to simply kill the chickens, but agreed this week instead to give them to the California rescue, which will in turn rehabilitate the hens and adopt them out to people throughout California.