Cryptic crossword No 3,453
Sat 16 May 2026, set byGhotiMiller
Special Instructions: The theme here is backyard chickens - there is a connection to the theme for every clue or solution. (Just one or two might be a little tenuous!) In some but not all clues the explicit mentioning of chickens is, strictly speaking, superfluous to the rules of cryptic crosswords.
Across
- Cute yellow fluff-ball, or evil June-born? (8)
- Removing eggs gets hog angry and bothered (3)
- Loon leaves loose end for bird to peck at (4)
- Nuts, seeds - not odd, not fresh (4)
- Farmer not free to farm at will so shortened the extremities! (7,3,5)
- Accommodation: Manager - Mr. Fox? (3-5)
- Slumbers not a pretty sight at first (4)
- Hopping back in used area - the core of places where hungry hens left only cores? (8)
- Who's being taken to be an exhibit? (4)
- A route unknown to common symptom of disease in backyard chickens (6)
- A beakful of water drips back out of optics (3)
- Home sent astray (4)
- Once I'm scrambling a livelihood from eggs (6)
- Two women produce antibacterial herb for poultry treatment (8)
- Hens don't pass every egg first! (3)
- An affectionate kiss to use 2D (4)
- Gone back without an egg, drink with an egg (3)
Down
- Uneven reversal that upheld what the deep litter method needs (5)
- 161 things bird-related (5)
- Hens at top of regal pecking order? (6)
- Ossified desire snapped after death? (8)
- Mouth needs break but no rest (4)
- Bulb not light but pungent parasite control? (6)
- Removing blood, Calvin Klein leaves chicken leg disfigured (8)
- Hen looking for way out of spaciest conversion (8)
- Effort to have chicken on high roost? (6)
- Fathers attempt cover for dead chicken? (6)
- Two oddballs have roost material (4)
- In Pan-American pet chicken label (4)
- One precious egg in new exuberant stores? (4,3,8)
- Damn! Egg stealers! (4)
- Preyed predator is threat to hens on farm (8)
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