Dalluge 1

Dear Mathematician,
Hello, my name is Old McDonald. (Yes, the one that has
the farm!) I was hoping you could help me with a
problem You see, the lock broke on the gate that
separates my cows from my chickens and now they are all
mixed up! I need to know right away how many cows and
how many chickens I have and if I should take the animals
to the market this week or what until the price improves. I
was able to count 296 legs in the farmyard, and I know
that I have a total of 100 animals. However, I am very
confused about how many cows and how many chickens I
have. Could you help me determine the number of each
type in the yard? Mamma McDonald requires that my
inventory be verified and checked three different ways.
Lastly, if I were to take them to the market this week I
would get $2.09 per chicken and $462.67 per cow. Last
month, I made $25,734.43 and I need to make more this
month. Should I take them to the market now or wait until
the price improves? Thank you for your help.

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Sincerely,
Old McDonald
Alexandra Dalluge
Mr.Horn
Pre-Ap Algebra 1
7th Grade

Cows and Chicken Essay

Dear Old McDonald,

I have read your letter concerning the broken lock, and your cows and chicken fiasco, and
I think I have a solution for you.
First of all, you need to get a new lock so you can re-separate the cows and the chickens
yet again. There are many different ways to find how many cows and how many chickens you
have. I decided to solve this problem with every way I could possibly think ofI solved by
SUBSTITUTION, ELIMINTAION, MATRICES, and GRAPHING.
When solving by substitution, you have to substitute the values of x into the equation. So,
Old McDonald, when I began to solve by substitution I solved for x in the first equation and got
that y=48. That means you have 48 cows. Now that I have the y-value, I substituted it into the
first equation to find the value of x. For the first equation, I got that x=52. That means you have
52 chickens.

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I also solved by elimination/combination to see if I got the same results as I did when I
solved by substitution. I multiplied the whole second equation by 2 on both sides. I got that
200=-2x-2y , so that I could cancel the xs out. Then I got that 96=2y, and then divided 96 by 2
to get that y=48. In order to find out what x equals, I had to substitute the value for y into the
second equation and got that x=52. That means that you have 52 chickens and 48 cows.

Since, when I solved for the cows and the chickens, I got the same amount, I decided to
solve by matrices to be 100% sure. I hit all of the necessary buttons on my high-tech calculator
to solve by matrices, and entered the equations in. When I hit the enter button, I got that x=52
and y=48. This happened to be the exact same results that I received when solving by
substitution, and elimination/combination.
There is one more possible way to find out how many cows and how many chickens you
have. So, I graphed the two equations and put them into slope intercept form.

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The point at which the two lines intersect is at (52, 48).

Now onto your other problem, I substituted how much each chicken and how much each
cow cost into the equation. $2.09 per chicken, and $462.67 per cow. Since we know the number
of cows and chickens you have, we now can find how much money you could possibly make.
$2.09 (52 chickens) + $462.67 (48 cows) = $22, 316.84
$22,316.84 is less than what you made last month ($25, 734.43). Since you made more
money last month, than what you could make this month, and I know that you want to make
more money than last month. I would suggest that you should wait until the price of the market
improves, so you can get more money for your cows and chickens.
Sincerely,

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Alexa the Mathematician

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