Please do not listen to these liars try to explain Chicken Math. They will
only confuse you.
Chicken Math is the only completely scientifically acceptable way of counting
chickens. Let me explain...
Everyone has heard the "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" expression?
It means that eggs are only eggs, and therefore never to be counted as real chickens.
So hatching eggs do not count.
Roosters never count because they are not really chickens. They are roosters. Simply
a part of the proper equipment one must have to hatch the eggs that don't count either.
A hen not yet old enough to lay an egg isn't worth being counted either. While we may
have many of these, they are basically worthless. It costs the farmer out of pocket to
raise these things. Farmers may never admit to owning money losing animals.
Once your hens become "laying hens", they now count as real bondafied chickens. They
have a purpose.
They now provide the happy farmer with eggs to sell to the city-folk.
However...if the hen goes brody, or the farmer decides to incubate the eggs of a certain
hen, the said hen is now considered as un-productive in the egg-selling business and no
longer counts.
Once the hen is beyond her best egging days, she again no longer counts. But she has
earned her way, and is now on the farmers retirement plan.
Given all this information, one should then take the total number of eggs-collected-for-sale
during seven days, divide thatnumber by the seven and...there you have the exact number
of chickens in the flock.
Example: If the Farmboy has 1200 eggs this month (March, 31 days) ...1200 divided by 31
equal 38.7 hens. It is not possible to have half a hen, so we round down...38 hens. Farmers
also do not count each chicken as "one"...takes to long. So we round the number again.
38 is just about 36, or three dozen hens give or take.
As someone has already pointed out, there are 16 eggs in a farmer's dozen. Not 12. So help me
count the Farm Boys chickens....16, 32, 48...48 is to many. So we round off again to the nearest
whole dozen...or 32.
That's two dozen chickens the Farm Boy now has.
And everybody knows that two dozen is really the same as 24.
So...Farm Boy really only has 24 chickens.
....And THAT'S chicken math...