# How many hamsters would it take to power your home? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 26, 2005, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-hamsters-would-it-take-to-power-your-home/305563 "2005-05-26T05:49:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-hamsters-would-it-take-to-power-your-home/305563/1 "2005-05-26T05:49:14Z")
Suppose your dissatisfaction with your electrical company leads you to an alternative source of energy- hamsters. About how much energy does one hamster running on a wheel generate? How long could they run before they tire out and/or die from exhuastion? About how many hamsters would it take to provide the electrical needs of a home in California? ---
**Author:** ![zoogirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b9bd4f/32.png) [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-hamsters-would-it-take-to-power-your-home/305563/2 "2005-05-26T06:22:17Z")
Regular, Teddy Bear or Chinese Dwarf? I’m thinking you could only use Chinese Dwarves in apartments or maybe basement suites. (looks around) Although…this place is _tiny_… Oh, Badger! Come and play on the nice wheel! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-hamsters-would-it-take-to-power-your-home/305563/3 "2005-05-26T06:36:14Z")
I can’t find any measurements of hamster power. But if you assume the same power-toweight ratio as a human (hey, we’re both mammals), a hamster weighs roughly 1/500 of a human. A typical human can sustain 100W output for maybe 6 hours a day (very roughly speaking) which would be 600 wh (watt-hours) per day. So a hamster can probably do just over 1 wh/day. If your home uses 600 kwh/month of power, that’s 20kwh/day, or 20,000 wh/day, so you need 20,000 hamsters. Or 40 humans. ---
**Author:** ![adirondack\_mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5a626/32.png) [@adirondack\_mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adirondack_mike)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-hamsters-would-it-take-to-power-your-home/305563/4 "2005-05-26T14:35:00Z")
I don’t know from hamsters but rabbits put out 8 BTUs per hour. You can use them to heat your greenhouse (Google - rabbits greenhouse). They won’t power your home but they will keep you warm. You want to know how many rabbits it will take to heat your house? What do I look like a mathematician? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-hamsters-would-it-take-to-power-your-home/305563/5 "2005-05-26T14:46:50Z")
> [@adirondack\_mike](#): > > I don’t know from hamsters but rabbits put out 8 BTUs per hour. You can use them to heat your greenhouse (Google - rabbits greenhouse). They won’t power your home but they will keep you warm. It would be simpler, and just as efficient, to skip the rabbit and throw the rabbit food into a furnace. For the same reason, it may be better to skip the hamsters and use the hamster food to run a steam engine hooked up to a generator. It’s a lot easier to clean up after, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-hamsters-would-it-take-to-power-your-home/305563/6 "2005-05-26T17:13:49Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > For the same reason, it may be better to skip the hamsters and use the hamster food to run a steam engine hooked up to a generator. It’s a lot easier to clean up after, anyway. Maybe, but you can also use the tons of dried hamster poop to fuel generators. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-hamsters-would-it-take-to-power-your-home/305563/7 "2005-05-26T20:55:44Z")
Can’t get something for nohing, the poop may have energy in it, but you’re still looking at a net loss because you have to use some of the energy to power the hamster. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-hamsters-would-it-take-to-power-your-home/305563/8 "2005-05-26T21:12:19Z")
> [@adirondack\_mike](#): > > You want to know how many rabbits it will take to heat your house? > What do I look like a mathematician? Hey, they’re rabbits. They multiply! (was that the punchline you were seeking?) There was an episode of _Chip 'N Dale’s Rescue Rangers_ (“[The Pied Piper Power Play](http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-3236/epid-83780/)”) in which an evil scientist hypnotizes mice (and related rodents) to generate electricty on a variety of wheels. In case cartoon-watching is not a sufficiently rigorous research protocol, [this guy](http://www.otherpower.com/hamster.html) is taking a more realistic approach. Clearly the approach requires proper motivation: > [@](#): > > Skippy [the hamster] does from 2-3 mph at normal speed, and slightly faster when DanF’s cats are leering at him through the cage walls. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-hamsters-would-it-take-to-power-your-home/305563/9 "2005-05-26T21:21:02Z")
[The future is here!](http://www.otherpower.com/hamster.html)