Jerry has a flock of chickens. The red chickens produce 3 eggs a day, and the white chickens produce 5 eggs a day. Every day Jerry collects 42 eggs. If he has two more white chickens than red chickens, how many red chickens does he have?
How many eggs do the red and white chickens lay each day? ** First, set up the equation for the number of eggs the chickens lay each day: 3r + 5w = 42, where r is the number of red chickens and w is the number of white chickens.
How many white chickens does Jerry have? ** Then, express r in terms of w based on the information in the problem: w = r + <<+2=2>>2
How many eggs do the red and white chickens lay each day? ** Now substitute r + 2 for w in the equation for the number of eggs: 3r + 5(r + 2) = 42
How many eggs do the red and white chickens lay each day? ** Now multiply 5 through the parentheses: 3r + 5r + 10 = 42
How many eggs do the red and white chickens lay each day? ** Now add like terms to get 8r + 10 = 42
How many eggs do the red and white chickens lay each day? ** Now subtract 10 from both sides of the equation: 8r = 32
How many red chickens does Jerry have? ** Finally, divide both sides of the equation by 8 to get r = 4
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