While my daughter is genarally a pain in the (fill in the blank here), I must admit, she does have her moments of awsomeness!

 Q: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

A: "First, as the average weight of a healthy, young woodchuck is about 10 pounds, let’s assume that said woodchuck is able to cut down and lift pieces of wood approximating this weight. This concept follows the theory that, generally, an animal can lift and car...ry its own body weight.

Also, our average woodchuck can consume as much as about 2000 calories per day derived from lettuce, corn, spinach, peas, squash, cucumbers, alfalfa, clover, oats, and other vegetables, grains, and fruits, most scavenged from farm crops. This means that the woodchuck would be able to chuck a pretty hefty amount of wood, naturally using up his or her daily caloric intake before having to rest.

However, assuming that each cut piece of wood would demand about four calories of woodchuck energy, and knowing that animals generally have a short attention span, the woodchuck might retire for the day after an initial workout. He or she could resume chucking later on, but would still need to retain calories for normal activities until the next day, including some calories to burn in order to keep warm at night. Also, if the wood is too dense, such as with an oak or maple tree, the woodchuck may become frustrated and move on to another, “softer” tree. Either way, let’s assume that he or she would burn about 300 calories.

So, plugging these figures into a formula, we could figure that a woodchuck could chuck 75 10-pound pieces of wood in a day if it could, indeed, chuck wood. However, this amount would be unattainable because by the time a woodchuck chucked this much wood, he or she may have attracted the attention of a red fox and been eaten. Other possible predators are the bobcat, cougar, coyote, mountain lion, wolf, and human hunter. Woodchucks are excellent swimmers and climbers, though, and our sample woodchuck may have escaped, if the chucking didn’t leave it too tired to run, climb, or swim.

It all depends on how quietly the woodchuck chucks, how much energy it expends, and the proximity of the nearest red fox."


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