3QUESTION 3 OF 3
Answer & explanation
The official answer, with Fermi’s reasoning step by step.
Answer & explanation
Official answer
33,000,000,000
chickens
How to estimate it
Fermi’s official “Napkin math”
Start with 8 billion people. We eat an enormous amount of chicken, and a meat bird only lives a couple of months. How many are alive per person at any moment? Maybe 4.
- World population
- 8,000,000,000
- Chickens alive per person
- × 4
- 8B × 4
- ≈ 32 billion
Rounded assumptions may give a slightly different estimate. The official answer above is the game’s reference value.
Source calculation & reference
- Annual chickens slaughtered
- ~75 billion
- Average lifespan in production
- ~45 days = 1/8 of a year
- Live population at any moment
- 75B × 1/8 + layer flocks
- FAO standing population
- ≈ 33 billion
Reference cited by Fermi: FAO FAOSTAT live animal stocks (2023)
How close was your guess?
Your comparison will appear here.
Compare by ratio: divide the larger number by the smaller one. The closer to 1×, the better.