Overdose of Love: Adorable Photos of Children Showing Their Affection For Baby Animals

In 1953, the Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo opened a new children’s section stocked with baby animals. LIFE’s article was hilariously titled “Zoo’s Babies Get Overdose of Love”, as the children seemed to fail to differentiate between the live animals and their stuffed ones at home, so they poked and prodded them until the animals decided that they had had enough.

“Some animals fought back,” the magazine stated. “A monkey grabbed a woman’s lipstick. A baboon hit a boy. A llama who had had his fill of popcorn discovered a way to say so, and a loud-mouthed mother stalked away, yelling, ‘That dirty brazen creature poked me in the rear!'”

Take a look through these adorable pictures taken by Howard Sochurek and you will see why the kids had a hard time keeping their distance:

“He feels funny,” one child remarked about the elephant.

This duck’s long neck provided a nice handhold for one boy.

Children were drawn to a baby kangaroo.

Children visited Brookfield Children’s Zoo in Chicago, 1953.

Baby llamas at the Brookfield Children’s Zoo in Chicago, 1953.

The attraction here was a sea elephant who had left its pool.

A baby kangaroo was bottle-fed at Brookfield Children’s Zoo, Chicago, 1953.

A lion cub was displayed in a basket at the Brookfield Children’s Zoo in Chicago, 1953.

Hands swarmed over a dazed linon cub, Caesar.

Elephant, Brookfield Children’s Zoo in Chicago, 1953.

The original LIFE story was titled “Zoo’s Babies Get Overdose of Love.”

A goat perched on a table at the Brookfield Children’s Zoo, Chicago, 1953.

Popcorn-stuffed baby llamas, too full to walk, were carried to their cage.

(via LIFE)