Answers To The “John Has Chicken And Dogs” Algebra Problem
JOHN HAS CHICKENS AND DOGS – In this article, we are going to solve an algebra problem that involves finding the number of animals on a farm.
The question goes like this:
A boy named John has chickens and dogs. His animals have 53 heads and 142 legs between them. How many chickens and how many pigs does the farmer have?
This question asks for the exact number of dogs and chickens that the farmers have. To solve this, we first need to assign variables for the chickens and the dogs.
let c = the number of chickens
and d = the number of dogs.
Now, we know that there are 53 heads and 142 legs in total. Additonally, we also know that dogs have 4 legs and chickens have 2. So, for every 4 legs, there should be 1 head for the dog. Likewise, for every 2 legs, their should be 1 head for the chickens.
This means, there are already 53 animals in total and we only need to know the number of chickens and dogs giving us “c+d =53“.
Therefore, we could use the equation 2c + 4d = 142. Next, we solve by using substitution. Let, c = 53-d.
2(53-d) + 4d = 142
106-2d+4d =142
106 + 2d = 142
2d = 142 – 106
2d = 36
d= 18, Therefore, there are 18 dogs in the farm.
Then, simply replace the original equation with our newly solved answer. c+d = 53 would become:
C + 18 = 53 —> C = 53-18 —-> C = 35, Therefore, the number of chickens in the farm is 35. So, all in all, there are 18 dogs and 35 cats in owned by John.
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