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A man with 90 sheep wants to sell them in a market 30km away from his farm. He went searching for trucks to load his sheep and he found out that every truck can carry 30 sheep at a time, but he will have to pay 1 sheep for every 1km to every truck driver (1sheep/km/driver).

At the end of the day he managed to sell 25 sheep, how is that possible?

(If you do a simple math you realize that he’ll arrive at the market with no sheep

1 sheep x 30 km x 3 drivers = 90 sheeps) (excuse my english)

Anurag
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Nordinator
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2 Answers2

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He takes all 3 trucks and gets the drivers to drive for 10km. This costs him

10 sheep * 3 trucks = 30 sheep - he has 60 left

Now he loads the remaining sheep onto two trucks. He travels 15km. This costs him another

15 sheep * 2 trucks = 30 sheep - he now has 30 left.

He loads them all onto a single truck and drives the final 5km. This costs him

5 sheep. He ends up with 25 and sells them at the market.

I think he should use the money to help get a better job :)

Beastly Gerbil
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    I don't know about these truck drivers, but if it were me, I'd charge sheep for the hassle of having to transfer them to new trucks. – Ian MacDonald Aug 17 '17 at 18:40
  • @IanMacDonald you'd do well in the sheep driving business ;) – Beastly Gerbil Aug 17 '17 at 19:27
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    I think the reason why this puzzle and the apple puzzle don't work as well as the banana puzzle is that the bananas are consumed, but the sheep and apples are simply paid. If I'm a driver with 30 sheep in the back of my truck and you tell me to drive 10km, I'm just going to spray-paint 10 of those sheep pink to mark them as paid to me. Now if you tell me that you're going to "load the remaining sheep onto the truck", I'm going to tell you there isn't enough room for your sheep because I have 10 sheep of my own on the truck. – Ian MacDonald Aug 17 '17 at 19:59
  • @IanMacDonald that is a very good point – Beastly Gerbil Aug 17 '17 at 20:10
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    I think the reason why this puzzle doesn't work as well as the banana puzzle is that one sheep per km driven?! that man needs to get out of the sheep raising business if that's the best deal he can get! – Rubio Aug 17 '17 at 21:21
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    @Rubio lol :p I blame brexit :P – Beastly Gerbil Aug 17 '17 at 21:26
  • @IanMacDonald actually the drivers will be paied from one truck till it's empty. – Nordinator Aug 18 '17 at 10:18
  • @Nordinator "Empty"? Where do the sheep go? Do they eat them? Eating one sheep per km traveled is a lot of mutton to consume. – Ian MacDonald Aug 18 '17 at 13:29
  • @IanMacDonald hhhh sorry now i see what you meant – Nordinator Aug 18 '17 at 16:13
  • As @IanMacDonald says, the sheep are paid. Another consequence of this is that, after a driver loads n sheep into a truck & drives a long way, there's still n sheep in the truck. This means that the tactic of driving goods from A to B then later (or with another driver) driving them from B to C is futile. – Rosie F Aug 20 '17 at 06:19
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He can still manage to sell

30 sheeps. He can load a truck with 30 sheeps and sell them in the market. Then he can just pay the truck driver 30 sheeps for 30 km. He'll sell 30 sheeps and still have 30 left.

Hugh Meyers
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Senthilnathan
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    You know, I actually think this works. He could even pay the driver up front: "Here are your 30 sheep. Do what you want with them, then drive these other 30 to market." I'm sure this isn't what the poser intended but I think this is a valid interpretation of the conditions. Welcome to Puzzling.se! (I have added spoiler tags to your answer.) – Hugh Meyers Aug 18 '17 at 10:58
  • I like the idea - but I think the point is you have to pay the driver with a sheep after every kilometer. But as the question is currently defined I believe this works – Beastly Gerbil Aug 18 '17 at 12:05
  • @BeastlyGerbil One more reason the camel/banana version of the question is better. Great "out of the box" thinking in this answer though. – Hugh Meyers Aug 18 '17 at 13:44
  • Also, you could tell the driver that he'll get 1 sheep/km driving his sheep to market and driving back again to collect the sheep, providing the driver with 60 sheep total. I'm sure the driver would be willing to take that deal. – Ian MacDonald Aug 18 '17 at 14:25
  • Just a point: While this is a great point it doesn't actually answer the question which is 'how can he do it and get 25 sheep', not 'what is the maximum'... – Beastly Gerbil Aug 18 '17 at 18:16
  • @Beastly Gerbil. Yes, it doesn't answer how he sold 25 sheep. This point just retorts the simple math specified in the question. Moreover the word "managed" deceives everyone into thinking that 25 is the maximum number of sheep that can be sold. – Senthilnathan Aug 18 '17 at 19:19
  • The problem suggests that there's an element absent from the "drive a truck across the desert" and "transport apples" problems: you have 3 trucks. But this answer shows that the extra trucks don't help. – Rosie F Aug 20 '17 at 06:10