Question

There is an animal farm where chickens and cows live. All together, there are 59 heads and 184 legs. How many chickens and cows are there on the farm?​

Answer 1

Answer:

There are 33 cows and 26 chickens

Step-by-step explanation:

Problem Solving

This problem can easily be solved by using equations, but it's more fun to solve it through pure reasoning and arithmetics.

Let's imagine there are no cows on the farm. Just chickens. 59 chicken heads mean 59*2 = 118 legs.

Now let's take one chicken out and one cow in. The number of heads will remain the same, but now there are two more legs: 120 legs.

We are closer to the answer. The trick is to calculate how many chickens we have to exchange for cows knowing each change means two more legs.

Since we initially had 118 legs, we need to add 184 - 118 = 66 more legs.

62 more legs are 66/2 = 33 changes or 33 cows.

The number of chickens is 59 - 33 = 26

Answer: There are 33 cows and 26 chickens