Sheep Farmer Math

In an effort to make math more interesting for kids and to make my kids understand that math really is important, I have started a series of Farmer Math questions to go along with the Flat Aggie reports.  These are patterned after the blog Bedtime Math.  Some of the questions are easy enough for pre-schoolers and sometimes I come up with some to even challenge high school seniors.

These questions follow the report Flat Aggie visits Uptown Farms and Flat Aggie Visits Clay Hill Ranch.  Additional educational materials can be found in the post All About Sheep.

1.  Flat Aggie saw 2 ewes lamb in the morning and 2 ewes lamb after lunch. How many ewes did Flat Aggie see lamb in all?

2.  If 3 ewes had twins and 1 ewe had triplets, how many lambs were there in all?

3.If the ewes are fed 6 pounds of hay per day and there are 28 ewes in each pen, how many pounds of hay does each pen need per day?

4.  What percentage of a bale of hay would be fed to each pen per day if a hay bale weighs 850 pounds?

5.  Farmers often calculate their lamb crop in percent lambs born alive per ewe.  If Uptown Farms had 98 ewes in all, 2 ewes did not have live lambs and the remaining ewes averaged 2.3 lambs born alive. How many lambs did they have in all to the nearest whole number?   What would that the lamb crop be?  (Need a hint?  Number of live lambs divided by the number of ewes in the flock.)

If you are a teacher or homeschooler that would like more information to go with the Flat Aggie reports, send me a message on my contact form.  Along with the report and the Farmer Math questions, we send each teacher an additional page of activities and sometimes a few hands on activities.

Answers: 1.) 4 ewes  2.) 9 lambs  3.) 168 pounds of feed  4.) 19.76%  5.) 221 lambs, 225% lamb crop 

-A Kansas Farm Mom