Help with "guess and check strategy"?

Question

i dont want the answer, i just want to know to find it myself.

QUESTION: Farmer Tom has a very unusual farm. He raises chickens and rabbits. One day his children decide to count the animals Brittany returns from the farmyard and says, "Dad, we have 18 animals because i counted each head. Gabby says, "I counted the feet and we have 58 animal feet" An interesting we have say farmer tom. How many of each of chicken and rabbits does tom have?

like i said i just want to know how to work it not the answer.

Answer 1

Use variables C : chicken and R : rabbit

The number of chickens plus the number of rabbits = 18 because each chicken and each rabbit have 1 head each, so C + R = 18

How many feet does a chicken have ?

How many feet does a rabbit have ?

Write the second equation and set equal to 58, then use a method to solve a system of linear equations.

(Substitution, linear combination, addition/subtraction)

Good luck to you !

Answer 2

You have to create two equations.

let c  = chickens and r = rabbits

so c + r = 18

Now c(2) + r(4) = 58

because chickens have 2 feet and rabbits have 4

Let's see if you can go from there.

Answer 3

try guess and check with four feet and two feet added together until you come up with 58 feet total for 18 animals

hope i helped