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Chicken And Rabbit Maths Question

They call it the Chicken and Rabbit maths question.

The question will start with the total number of chicken and rabbit, and the total number of legs. With this, you be asked how many chicken there are in the farm.

The chicken and rabbit can be replace with any two and four legged animal respectively.

Example of question -

Hussain saw a total of 23 sheep and ducks in a farm. If there are total of 82 legs, how many ducks did he see?

Many parents will look to algebra to get the answer. Eg x=sheep, y=ducks, so x+y=23 and 4x+2y=82.


As this is P3 maths, you are technically not allowed to use algebra as it is not taught yet and algrebra is Mathematics and not Arithmetic.

The other method is to do ratios but it can be a challenge if the numbers get too big. 

I found a Youtube Video which explains how to this sum but I am blogging this to keep a record on how to this for posterity.

The Explanation and The Working 

There are a total of 23 animals in the farm and all the animals have 2 legs each (ducks have 2 legs and sheep have 2+2 legs).

So if you take 23x2=46, there are total of 46 sets of 2 legs.

This 46 sets of 2 legs represent all the legs of the ducks and the set of 2 legs of the sheeps.

When I take 82-46=36, it means I take away all the legs of the ducks and the set of 2 legs of the sheep. As such, only the sheep have 2 legs left on the ground and that total is 36.

36/2=18

So there are 18 sheeps in total with two legs on the ground.

If there are 18 sheep, so the number of ducks is 23-18=5.

There are 5 ducks and 18 sheep in the farm.

The Check

5x2+18x4=10+72=82 legs.

Below is the video as promised.



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