how would they share?

Question

A farmer is getting old and so he calls his three sons to him. He say to the first son, over the years whenever I needed help around here you never hesitated to lend a hand, so when I die you will get one half of my cows. He says to the second son, you have not been so generous with you help around here so when I die you will only get one third of my cows. And he says to the last son, you have done basically nothing on the farm so when I die you will get one ninth of my cows. Well the day comes and the farmer passes away. The sons gather in the barn and count the cows. There are 17. In the will it says that the boys are not able to share or kill and divide a cow so how do they split the cows up according to their fathers wishes?

Answer 1

Borrow one cow from someone temporarily.
That makes the total to 18
so the first one gets one half of them i.e. 9
the second one gets one third i.e. 6
the third one gets one ninth i.e. 2
Now 9+6+2 = 17
Remaining is the 18th cow. We may now return the 18th cow back to its original owner.

Answer 2

Normally in real life they would probably sell them and divide the money.
What I notice is that 1/2 +1/3+1/9=17/18.
Maybe they should buy one more cow, and then take 9,6 and 2.
Which does equal 17.
But then of course they would be sharing the 18th cow.
They can just suppose they buy it, and do it like that.