head tilt - when to put him in what size pen?

Question
HI Dana.  Thanks so much.  Yes, we got him to the emergency center within an hour of noticing the eye movement; then, to our normal rabbit expert vet the next morning.  He is on meclazine and two antibiotics while we wait for blood results for ec. or ear infection.   in the meantime, he is eating, drinking, his head tilt has improved a bit, stopped eye movement and can actually walk and hop a bit without falling over. My initial question was and still is, how much room to give him and when? We are moving him from a cage to a pen today...with blanket padding.  He seems to be happier with a bit more space, but we don't want to overdo it!  (too much too fast!).  Thanks...you are wonderfully dedicated to this.  
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The text above is a follow-up to ...

-----Question-----
My bun got head tilt yesterday (came on suddenly) and we are not sure when to put him in a bigger pen - after his eyes stop going back and forth??  help!
-----Answer-----
Dear Pamela,

Before you do anything, please get him to a good rabbit vet for diagnosis and treatment:

www.rabbit.org/vets

There are many different causes of head tilt/torticollis:

www.rabbit.org/health/tilt.html

and each has its appropriate treatment. Please feel free to share the article above with your vet, as it is written by a well-known rabbit expert veterinarian and is full of excellent information on this condition.

For your own information, please read:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/tilt.html

as well, as it contains information about care and husbandry while this problem is being treated.

I hope this helps.

Dana

Answer
Dear Pamela,

In my opinion, as long as he's not rolling so badly that he's bashing into things, you can give him as much room as you have.  The more space he has, the more he'll be able to run in straight lines, and that makes a HUGE difference to his recovery.  If he has a small space, he's more likely to run in circles, following his head tilt.  That just exacerbates things.

We found that Jamie Blue, our big head tilt bunny girl, had a *terrible* tilt when she was confined, but when she was allowed free run in the back yard (supervised, of course), her head came up almost vertical and you could hardly tell she had the tilt!  

So bottom line:  The sooner the better to get him into a big space, and the *bigger* the better, too.  As long as he's not rolling badly and in danger of hurting himself, you can't give him too much space.  

Good luck!

Dana