Chicken wire to protect roots and wire outside of plant?

I'm not sure if the chicken wire in the ground will help much, but I would definitely recommend the cage above ground...IMO.

Regular chicken wire is NOT enough as it has 1" holes. Moles go right through it and young gophers (way worse) will too. Gotta use 1/2" aviary wire, unfortunately it's such a light guage you only get 1 season - maybe two. 1/2" hardware cloth is the best if you are only doing a few holes, it lasts for years but is 4x the price.

Hops

I think the fence will work fine, but the fencing in the holes might not be worth it. Underground root problems would be terrible but personally i havent heard of it happening much.

Now if your using stinky organic stuff(blood/bone meal) both cages could pontentailly save your crop

I just checked out my spot yesterday and I think I might have to put some sort of wire to protect the roots from being eaten by little underground critters. Any Ideas of what to use? Also what to use to protect the outside of my plant?

Aviary wire or hardware cloth underground. Fencing above. Just installed all of mine this past weekend.

Hops

Yea I would use wire mesh screen underground, and chicken wire around the outside of the plant and above....that should do a fair job at protecting the plant from just about any animals that would be able to get to it. This is probably what I will do myself.