Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Secret pig farming at Peachgrove


Hi kids. I want to raise rare breed pigs, chickens and sheep on a bushclad lifestyle block near Hamilton. If I was drought affected and needed more grass for my stock, could I sneak them onto the school field during the holidays?

If I have ten Auckland Island pigs who require one hectare of grazing area per week to be happy and well fed, is the school field big enough to cope with them during the school holidays for two weeks?


This is a measurement exercise. You need to measure distances around the field using metre long step [use the metre ruler to gauge how big your steps need to be] and calculate the area of the field in sqaur emetres. Add comments to convert hectares into metres. Comment regarding what you need to subtract from the overall area to make your calculations more accurate.

Once you have worked out the area, if you believe it is too small for ten pigs over two weeks, work out how many pigs I could sneak on - I can always leave the others at home.

Draw a tidy scaled diagram in your maths book. Include your measurements. Show your calculations and findings.

Have fun.

:-)

Be nice to pigs and chickens [DONT SUPPORT BATTERY FARMING]

13 comments:

Nei-Nei Neina-Marie said...

You couldn't. AT least I don't THINK you could. The drought.... hmmmmmmm, take them to some non-droughty place in Aotearoa.

Roo said...

Well you could take at least 5 pigs I definetly but anymore than that it would be small meals sort of I think.

IM A ROOM5IAN said...

this is just an estimation and i dont think it is correct but if a soccer field is 50mx25m then that equals 1250 then that can be timesed* by 2 because there is two fields and then i will add another 1250 to make up for around about the rest of the space which equals 3750m2 altogether BUT the pigs would need two hectares for the holidays. If one hectare equals 10,000 m2 that would be doulbled for the two weeks, making it 20,000m2. so it is 3750m2-20,000m2 so i dont reallt think it will work, unless you cut down seriously on the number of pigs you have, or something like that...

i somehow think ive missed something but im pretty sure it would still be a long way off :)

*if that is a word

IM A ROOM5IAN said...

feel free to delete this comment though if i wasnt supposed to put the answer... :) i kind of just realised...

MrWoody said...

no way room5ian - no deleting comments. especially not yours.
:-)
well done. how many pigs could i secretly graze at school in the hols?

Snowy said...

I think that you could have no more than 7 pigs on the school field . There would not be any grass left for them towards the end of the holidays if you were to feed rase them on the school field. I think you should raise them on a bigger peice of land 8)

Marshall said...

According to the information i found out with my mates, the school field could be approxmately 23,000 m2, which is around two and one fifth (2 1/5) of a hectares (i hope i'm right). You can sneak ten pigs on to the school field. But since there's patches of grass where it's drought affected, i estimate that you can hardly get past nine pigs.

Marshall said...

I hope i'm right, because Mr Woody will probably make me get detention.

Snowy said...

Hi marshall
i dont think the field is that big i thought that it is about 13500m2 so you could only get 7 pigs but i could easily be wrong
P.S. I dont think that Mr Woody would give you detention for getting it wrong at least we tried!!! 8-D

MrWoody said...

well done you mathematicians!

Nei-Nei Neina-Marie said...

I did a bit of mathmatics, and when I measured the field, it was 105 by 140. The other bit was 90 by 50. the total was 1.8150 hecteares. Sooooooo, you could fit nine of the smallest and take the biggest one home. So do I get no detention?

Mushroom Shortie said...

Well Neina-Marie I agree with you fully, but we all had different opinions of how long/wide the field actually was. It is very debatable but to find the exact answer you would need proper equipment, rather than just guessing with our steps. And you would need to do proper calculations to make sure that yo got the RIGHT answer. And it is very good that we are all extending our minds to figure this mind boggling qiz out... Hmmmmmmmmmmmm :-)
But I think that the closet would might be Neina-Marie...
Well done!!!!!!!!! :)

fred said...

I think you could only raise five pigs because i worked out there was only about 10'000m2 with the cricket pitches and stuff