• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Rabbit Writing Prompts

A warren room by room, ears turned to the wind, a raid on the lettuce, a thump at midnight.

Rabbit Writing Prompts

Show all 60
  1. Three rabbits go into the garden and two come out. Write where the third one was.Angle: asleep under the squash leaves, stuck behind a flowerpot, or too full to hurry?
  2. Write a rabbit dictionary: thump, binky, kit, doe, buck, warren. Give each word a meaning and a sentence.Fact: a kit is a young rabbit, a doe a female, a buck a male, and a warren the burrows they share.
  3. Write a pet rabbit's thump as a sentence. Then write five thumps that each mean something else.Angle: dinner is late; the vacuum cleaner; a stranger; the door left open; nothing at all.

Next step Write the garden's night visitorDraw the rabbit you wrote about

All 60 prompts

The burrow 15

  • A rabbit explains to a hare why anyone would want to live underground. Write both sides. Fact: rabbits are born in burrows or buried nests; hares are born in the open, with fur and good sight.
  • A rabbit has never been farther than it can run back from. Write the day it goes one field too far. Fact: European rabbits in a settled group rarely stray far from their warren.
  • A rabbit mother builds a nest for her kits. Write what she gathers and where it comes from. Fact: a doe lines the nest with grass and with fur from her own body.
  • A young rabbit digs its first tunnel. Write the digging, paw by paw. Fact: a rabbit pulls the soil back with its front feet and kicks it away with its hind legs.
  • A young rabbit has only ever known tunnels. Write its first minute above ground: what is too big, too bright, too loud? Fact: European rabbit kits begin to leave the burrow at about 18 days old.
  • Draw a rabbit warren in words: every tunnel, every room, and who sleeps where. Fact: a warren is a network of burrows, where European rabbits stay when they are not feeding.
  • It rains for three days and the rabbits stay underground. Write how a warren passes the time. Angle: who tells stories, who digs a new room out of boredom, who keeps checking the door?
  • Newborn rabbits cannot see. Write the burrow as a kit sees it on the day its eyes open. Fact: European rabbit kits are born blind and nearly bare; their eyes open 11 days after birth.
  • Snow covers the grass above a rabbit's burrow. Write the search for something to eat. Fact: in winter hungry rabbits may eat bark from shrubs and young trees.
  • Some rabbit warrens have a back way out. Write the night it was needed. Fact: some warren holes are dug from the inside, as emergency exits.
  • Tell the history of one old rabbit warren, dug room by room by rabbits who never met. Fact: a big warren follows no plan; it is enlarged by the rabbits of several generations.
  • Write a morning in the burrow as a rabbit hears it, before anyone has gone outside. Angle: paws overhead, rain or no rain, who is already up and who is pretending to sleep.
  • Write a rabbit's guided tour of its burrow for a mole who has dropped in by mistake. First line: Mind your head. This is the hall, and that smell is my uncle.
  • Write the rules of a rabbit warren, as scratched by the door for newcomers. Angle: five rules, and one that somebody has crossed out and written again.
  • Young rabbits sleep on grass and fur, and grown rabbits sleep on bare earth. Write a kit's last night in the soft bed. Fact: in a warren the young sleep in rooms lined with grass and fur; adults sleep on bare earth.

Ears up 15

  • A hare and a rabbit get the same fright. Write what each one does. Fact: a hare tries to outrun danger; a rabbit, smaller and slower, heads for cover.
  • A rabbit can see almost everything but what is right under its nose. Write a meal found by whiskers. Fact: a rabbit cannot see below its mouth; its lips and whiskers tell it what it is eating.
  • A rabbit freezes in the open grass. Write the longest minute of its day. Fact: faced with a possible threat, a rabbit may freeze and watch before it does anything else.
  • A rabbit hardly blinks. Write a staring contest between a rabbit and a cat on opposite sides of a window. Fact: a rabbit blinks only 2 to 4 times an hour, Wikipedia's rabbit article says.
  • A rabbit hears something before any other animal in the field. Write the three seconds that follow. Angle: ears first, then the freeze, then the choice. What was it?
  • A rabbit on lookout duty gets bored. Write what it nearly misses. Angle: a beetle, a cloud, a daydream; and then the grass moves the wrong way.
  • A rabbit thumps the ground with a hind foot. Write what every rabbit in the field does next. Fact: a rabbit may warn the rest of the warren with hard thumps of a hind foot.
  • A white tail flashes and the whole field empties. Write the scene as the last rabbit to notice. Fact: the white underside of a European rabbit's tail shows as it runs and may warn the others.
  • Explain why a rabbit hops and does not walk, in a paragraph a younger child could act out. Fact: a rabbit's hind legs are longer than its front legs, which is what makes it hop.
  • List every sound a rabbit hears in one minute at dusk, and mark the one that matters. Angle: wind, a far dog, a gate, wings. Which one makes the ears turn?
  • Write a conversation between a rabbit's left ear and its right ear, which are listening to different things. First line: "Footsteps," said the left ear. "Lawn mower," said the right.
  • Write a hot afternoon from the point of view of a rabbit's ears. Fact: a rabbit's ears help it lose heat as well as listen for danger.
  • Write a rabbit's sleep, eyes open, and the small movement that ends it. Fact: rabbits often sleep with their eyes open, so that a sudden movement wakes them.
  • Write the field as a rabbit sees it, with eyes that look almost all the way around. Fact: a rabbit's field of view takes in nearly 360 degrees.
  • Write the story of a false alarm: one rabbit thumps, everyone runs, and it was only... Angle: finish the sentence, then write how the thumper is treated afterward.

A garden raid 15

  • A child sees the garden rabbit every dawn and tells no one. Write a week of the secret. Angle: what does the child know about the rabbit by Friday that nobody else does?
  • A gardener finds a row of lettuce nibbled to the ground and suspects a rabbit. Write the detective work. Angle: clues at ankle height: a gap under the fence, a tuft of fur, a path through the dew.
  • A rabbit and a gardener both think the garden is theirs. Write each one's case. Angle: one planted it and one was born under its hedge. Who has the better claim?
  • A rabbit raids the garden and finds another animal already there. Write how they divide the rows. Angle: a deer, a slug, a blackbird. Who wants what, and who keeps watch?
  • A rabbit that lives on grass tastes a garden vegetable for the first time. Write the bite and the thought after it. Fact: European rabbits eat mostly grasses and leaves, and field crops where they find them.
  • A scarecrow is put up to keep the rabbits out. Write the rabbits' meeting about it. First line: "It has not moved since Tuesday," said the oldest rabbit.
  • The gardener builds a better fence. Write a rabbit's first evening looking at it. Angle: under, over, around or through? Or is the grass outside good enough after all?
  • It is the last night before the garden is picked. Write what the rabbits decide to do. Angle: one grand feast, or leave it alone and hope to be welcome next year?
  • Should a gardener share the garden with wild rabbits? Write your opinion, and answer the other side. Angle: who was there first, how much is enough, and what would a fair share look like?
  • Three rabbits go into the garden and two come out. Write where the third one was. Angle: asleep under the squash leaves, stuck behind a flowerpot, or too full to hurry?
  • Write a polite letter from a gardener to the rabbits, and the rabbits' reply. Angle: what does each side offer? A corner of clover, a promise about the peas?
  • Write a rabbit's garden raid as a whispered radio report from behind the bean poles. Angle: the reporter must not be heard by the rabbit or the gardener. Who gives the game away?
  • Write a rabbit's plan for a raid on a vegetable garden, with a lookout and a way out. Angle: write it as a briefing. What is the one thing nobody planned for?
  • Write a vegetable garden from rabbit height: what towers, what hides you, what smells best. Angle: stay below the top of the lettuce the whole way through.
  • Write the argument between a careful rabbit and a greedy one, halfway down the carrot row. First line: "That is enough." "That is never enough."

A pet that thumps 15

  • A child lies on the floor at rabbit height for ten minutes. Write what the rabbit does about it. Angle: ignore, circle, sniff a sleeve, flop down nearby. Which comes first?
  • A pet rabbit and the family cat have an understanding. Write how it was reached. Angle: who backed down first, where is the border, and who breaks the rules at night?
  • A pet rabbit comes when its name is called, but only for one person. Write why. Fact: rabbits can be taught to come when called, Wikipedia's domestic rabbit article says.
  • A pet rabbit does the happy move its family calls a binky. Write the binky and what set it off. Fact: a happy pet rabbit may do a movement known as a binky.
  • A pet rabbit has chewed something it should not have. Write its side of the story. Fact: rabbits are born with a need to chew, and all of their teeth keep growing.
  • A pet rabbit thumps at three in the morning. Write the night from the rabbit's side, then the family's. Angle: something outside the window, or a dream? Who gets up to look?
  • A pet rabbit thumps its back feet on the floor. Write what it is telling the family. Fact: a pet rabbit may thump its hind legs when it is upset.
  • Every pet rabbit has wild rabbits for ancestors. Write a pet rabbit's daydream of digging a real burrow. Fact: every breed of pet rabbit comes from the wild European rabbit.
  • The oldest rabbit on record lived to eighteen. Write a pet rabbit's speech on its eighteenth birthday. Fact: the longest-lived rabbit on record, a tame one in Tasmania, died at the age of 18.
  • Write a pet rabbit's opinion of the people it lives with, one sentence for each of them. Angle: who is too loud, who sits still on the floor, who smells of apples?
  • Write a pet rabbit's thump as a sentence. Then write five thumps that each mean something else. Angle: dinner is late; the vacuum cleaner; a stranger; the door left open; nothing at all.
  • Write a poem about a pet rabbit that has a thump in every stanza. Angle: let the thump mean something different each time it comes.
  • Write a rabbit dictionary: thump, binky, kit, doe, buck, warren. Give each word a meaning and a sentence. Fact: a kit is a young rabbit, a doe a female, a buck a male, and a warren the burrows they share.
  • Write the evening a pet rabbit explored a room it had never been allowed in. Angle: what does it sniff first, what does it hide behind, what does it decide is its own?
  • Write the morning routine of a pet rabbit, from the first stretch to the first thump. Angle: tell it in the rabbit's order of importance, not the clock's.

How it works

A writing prompt about a rabbit works best when it remembers that a rabbit is always listening. Half are set in the wild, underground or frozen in open grass, and half in a vegetable garden or a living room.

Read the full guide

Story ideas about rabbits, from the garden raid

The fifteen garden raid prompts are the story ideas: a plan with a lookout, a better fence, a gardener who writes the rabbits a letter. Each can be told from either side of the fence.

Why a rabbit thumps

Wikipedia's rabbit article says a rabbit that senses a threat may freeze, watch, and then warn the warren with hard thumps of a hind foot. Its article on the domestic rabbit says a pet may thump when it is upset. The pet prompts start from that sound on a floor.

  • Write a wild prompt and a pet prompt back to back. The thump is the same in both.

Questions and answers

What is a good writing prompt about a rabbit?

Write a conversation between a rabbit's left ear and its right ear, which are listening to different things. Or tell the history of one old warren, dug room by room by rabbits who never met.

Can rabbits see behind them?

Almost. Wikipedia's rabbit article says a rabbit's field of view takes in nearly 360 degrees, with a blind spot at the bridge of the nose. It cannot see what is right below its mouth, and finds food there with its lips and whiskers.

What is the difference between a rabbit and a hare?

Rabbits are born blind and without fur, in burrows or buried nests; hares are born in the open with fur and good sight, Wikipedia's rabbit article says. Hares are usually larger and outrun danger. A rabbit heads for cover.

Are these rabbit writing prompts for kids?

Yes. No rabbit is caught in any of them: an alarm is a freeze, a white tail and a run for the burrow. The pet prompts are about watching a rabbit, and none says how to keep one.

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