this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2025
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A question that's been bothering me over the weekend. Have been utterly stumped by it, so asking here if anyone has clarification to offer.
question
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?I've been trying to figure how many kilos/grammes per metre but if you want to answer in pounds shillings and ounces that's fine with me.
Not very much. Their arms are tiny. Average weight of woodchuck is 3.9kg. if we look at a human (agile, long arms comparitively), and perhaps use the weight of a hammer (like from hammer throw competition), which is 16kg, and AVG human weight in hammer throw... maybe 90kg? That's gets us 17.7% of weight. Transfer to groundhogs that's about 700g, BUT their short arms surely limit this a lot. I'll say at least by 75%. Which leads to: 175g. A woodchuck could chuck 175g, if a woodchuck could chuck wood
You forgot to factor in wind speed, humidity and atmospheric pressure as well what it had for breakfast.
Well jeez what if it was in outer space in zero gravity? It could chuck all the wood then - whether or not it ate vegemite for breakfast
This pretty close to the best answer I came up with. BUT. Woodchucks are rodents, not monkey-ancestor brachiators like us. So their shoulder and arm assembly is geared to grip & gather, not swing and bear weight. So the 'calculated' answer I came up with was 35grams. Given the moment arm and leverage etc. Plus claws get in the way - woodchucks don't have fingers/thumb for gripping like us. No doubt this question will continue to bother me.
You make some fair points. Perhaps only a 75% reduction was far too generous in hindsight. i think 35g is a bit too light though.these woodchucks are quite capable diggers. If you imagine it scooping up the wood in a digging fashion, perhaps flung betwixt its legs, I feel it could get a bit of power that way.
True. The initial question does not specify if the chuck in question is forward directed or rear directed. Damn questions that miss out on the most important info.
If gummy lollies were invented today, what shape would they have gone with if not snakes and red frogs?
Those ugly Labubus
Snakes aren't replaceable here. Frogs can be whatever though. Koalas?
As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood
spoiler
According to Google 700 pounds (317.5kg) so that's probably wrong. ๐คทโโ๏ธDo you have any other questions?
Probably, but they can wait.
spoiler
Its a bit hard to say, but they probably couldn't eat more than a couple of hundred grams, so if you are looking at how much they can chuck up in one incident it would be limited to that. But wood isn't part of their normal diet, so even if a woodchuck would chuck up wood it's unlikely they could chuck up wood.