A farmer has a farmyard containing both cows and chickens numbering 54legs. How many chickens and cows does he have?
He could have 25 chickens and 1 cow.
Or he could have 1 chicken and 13 cows.
Or he could have any number between.
Please how did you get that answer
chickens = 25 * 2 legs = 50 legs
cows = 1 * 4 = 4 legs
50 + 4 = 54
or
chicken -- 1 * 2 = 2 legs
cows 13 * 4 = 52 legs
52 + 2 = 54
I'm sure you've left something out of the original question.
To determine the number of chickens and cows the farmer has, we need to solve a system of equations based on the information given.
Let's assume that the number of cows is represented by 'c' and the number of chickens is represented by 'ch'.
Cows have 4 legs each, and chickens have 2 legs each. Since we know that there are 54 legs in total, we can write the equation:
4c + 2ch = 54
Now we need a second equation to solve the system. Since we know that the farmer has a certain number of animals, we can also write:
c + ch = total number of animals
However, we don't know the total number of animals, so we can't directly use this equation. We need to eliminate one of the variables to solve the system.
Let's multiply the second equation by 2 to make the coefficient of 'ch' the same as in the first equation:
2(c + ch) = 2 * (total number of animals)
2c + 2ch = 2 * total number of animals
Now we have two equations:
4c + 2ch = 54
2c + 2ch = 2 * total number of animals
By subtracting the second equation from the first one, we can eliminate the 'ch' variable:
4c + 2ch - (2c + 2ch) = 54 - (2 * total number of animals)
2c = 54 - 2 * total number of animals
We still need to find the value of 'total number of animals'. Let's say the total number of animals is represented by 't':
2c = 54 - 2t
We don't have enough information to directly solve for 'c' or 't' individually. However, we can make some logical deductions to narrow down the possibilities.
Since the minimum possible value for 'c' and 't' is zero (we can have no cows or no animals at all), we can set the equation:
2c = 54 - 2t
2 * 0 = 54 - 2 * 0
0 = 54
This is not possible, which means the minimum possible value for 'c' and 't' is 1. However, 1 cow alone would contribute 4 legs, which is less than the total number of legs (54). Therefore, we know that there must be at least 2 cows.
Let's try substituting 'c' = 2 into the equation:
2 * 2 = 54 - 2t
4 = 54 - 2t
2t = 54 - 4
2t = 50
t = 50/2
t = 25
So, by substituting 'c' = 2 back into the second equation, we can find the value of 'ch':
c + ch = t
2 + ch = 25
ch = 25 - 2
ch = 23
Therefore, the farmer has 2 cows and 23 chickens.