A farmer owns a total of 23 chickens and sheep.The chickens and sheep have 74 legs altogether.How many sheep are there?

To solve this problem, we can use a system of linear equations.

Let's denote the number of chickens as C and the number of sheep as S.

From the problem, we know two things:

1. The total number of chickens and sheep is 23. So, we can write this as an equation: C + S = 23.

2. Each chicken has 2 legs and each sheep has 4 legs. The total number of legs is 74. So, we can write this as another equation: 2C + 4S = 74.

To simplify the second equation, we can divide the entire equation by 2, which gives us: C + 2S = 37.

Now we have a system of two equations:

C + S = 23 C + 2S = 37

By subtracting the first equation from the second, we can find the value of S:

C + 2S - (C + S) = 37 - 23 S = 14

So, the farmer has 14 sheep.