When kids find snakes in their lunchbox, it’s usually of the sugary variety — not the deadly, venomous kind.

But for one Adelaide mother, it was a baby brown snake she found hiding in the lip of her child’s lunchbox, reports the ABC News.

Adelaide snake catcher Rolly Burrell told ABC Radio Adelaide the Hahndorf mum was preparing her child’s lunch on Monday when she found the deadly snake.

‘She’d already started packing it, the lunchbox itself has a lip around the top — snakes like to get into closed spaces so they feel secure,’ Burrell said.

‘When she opened up the lid ... she didn’t even see it and she was halfway through putting the lunch in and then she saw it and shut the lid down and gave us a call.’

Burrell said it was normal for baby brown snakes to hatch at this time of year, but said he had been receiving an unusually high number of calls this year.

‘We’re doing about 50, 60 calls a day and they’re all baby brown snakes,’ he said.

‘This is one of the best years for us that I’ve seen in 40 years of doing it, there’s just baby snakes hatching everywhere.’

Just the other day, Burrell said he was called to a home where a snake was found under a quilt.

‘The cat had brought it in, dropped it on the bed and they both bolted.’

Baby browns just as lethal as adult snakes

Burrell said baby brown snakes were just as lethal as a full grown one.

He said just because you found a baby brown snake, it did not mean the mother would also be hanging around.

‘The mother doesn’t hang around, she lays her eggs and she goes,’ he said.

‘She’s quite cannibalistic, even if she comes across them in the garden, she’ll eat them. So there’s no love there.’

Burrell said he was getting callouts to not only the hills, but also around the suburbs.

He said when he caught snakes, they were later re-released ‘quite a way away’.