How Many Hamsters Does It Take To Pull A Dogsled?

cowgin asks:"My coworkers and I were talking about dog sleds and the different type of dogs that pull dog sleds. We also talked about how many dogs there are in a dog sled team. Then I thought in the my usual slashdot manner, "how many hamsters would it take to pull a dog sled?" Unfortunately, I thought aloud. Needless to say that there were many stares (very blank stares). I envision some sort of harness that could be attached to those toy balls that allow the hamster to roam freely. Does anybody have any ideas on how many hamsters it would take to move a dog sled?"

Comments

Depends on the hamster

[rinkjustice]

It really depends on what kind of hamsters your talking about. If your talking about normal domesticated hamsters, I would say approximately a thousand or so to move a dog sled - if it is possible at all. But if your referring to transgenic hamsters whose genes have been spliced with the physical traits of the Himalayan "grunting ox" Bos grunniens, I would say one.

At least we're getting down to serious topics now :)

What do you mean?

[scotpurl]

African, or European hamsters?

How many?

[technos]

One, given a sufficiently steep hill.

Approximate the hamsters as spheres...

[bosef1]

and we can start to work with this. We can then also approximate sled dogs as spheres, and imagine that they are rolling, and dragging the sled behind them. So if we know the radius of a dog sphere, and the radius of a hamster sphere, the ratio between them should give us some idea of the proportionally constant between the number of dogs and the number of hamsters we need to pull a sled. Of course, I don't know how big a dog sphere or hamster sphere would be, so someone help me out.

The other problem is how to give the hamsters the traction they need to pull the sled. The idea of the plastic balls with hamsters inside is a good one, but you would also need some cleats on the balls to let them bit into the snow and give the hamsters purchase.

Re:Is that an African or a European dog sled?

[billybob2001]

Does it matter?

I think 1 (one) would suffice, in the case of the sled passenger being Richard Gere.

Won't someone think of the children!

[CaptCanuk]

I'm sure if you beat a dog attached to a sled with a whip with the intent of locomotion, you won't get into too much trouble with the humane society. But whip a 1000 hamsters, i'm sure your gonna kill at least a couple. You wanna see what blood looks like on snow? I just hope children aren't watching. But at least they'll get some exercise; those tubby balls of fur.