Farmer Hodges has 50 feet of fencing to make a rectangular hog pen beside a very large barn. He needs to fence only three sides because the barn will form the fourth side. Studies have shown that under those conditions the side parallel to the barn should be 5 feet longer than twice the width. If farmer Hodges uses all of the fencing, what should the dimensions be?

Answer 1

let the width be x ft
length is 2x+5

we need 2 widths and one length
2x+5 + x + x = 50
4x = 45
x = 45/4 = 11.25 ft

width = 11.25
length = 27.50