Question

There are thirteen animals in a barn. Some are chickens and some are pigs there are 40 legs in all. How many of each animal are there

Answer 1

Hi. In order to solve this word problem, you must make two equations and solve them together. To make it easy, we will let the letter "p" represent the pigs and the letter "c" for the chickens. So our first equation will be:

p + c = 13

Now to count the legs - we know that pigs have 4 legs and chickens have 2 so our next equation will be:

2c + 4p = 40

Using the first equation we see that c = 13 - p Now we insert this into the second equation and solve:

2x(13-p) +4 pm = 40
26 - 2p + 4p = 40
2p = 14
p = 7 (there are 7 pigs so now we know there are 6 chickens.

Answer: 7 pigs and 6 chickens

I hope this helps.

Take care,
Diana