I'm so sorry to hear that, hopeful both of our hens pull through.. I've been mixing Durvet Vitamins and Electrolytes in the chicken water, and she seems to be up more often, although I'm not sure if that was why she improved. We also tried half of a baby Tylenol but it didn't seem to help. Best...
I'm having similar problems with my golden sex link who's 1 year old. Shes limping a little and she seems to be laying down a lot, but she gets up fast for treats. Could she possibly have a sprain?
Haha we have two chickens, ones named jazzy and the other ones named piper. The name really fits her well because she's a super noisy hen. Also, when our chickens act crazy we call them spazzy and hyper instead of jazzy and piper!!
If the hardware cloth you're using is thin and kind of flimsy, it's possible that a predator could chew through it. It probably won't happen, but better safe than sorry!
I have been doing a similar project. We wanted an enclosure for our hens, so we concreted a few posts into the ground around the coop. We put some hogwire( basically super thick hardware cloth) around it and gave it a roof so that they could be our all day.