A south-east Queensland livestock farmer has helped the Middle Eastern emirate of Qatar rebuilt its ailing Awassi sheep herd.

Carolyn Davidson produced 4,000 Awassi sheep embryos to help Qatar rebuild its herd ( Marty McCarthy )

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 4 minutes 31 seconds 4 m 31 s Sheep farmer Carolyn Davidson talks about breeding Awassi sheep for the Middle East state of Qatar ( Marty McCarthy ) Download 2.1 MB

Awassi are a particular breed of sheep, originally from the Arabian desert, known for their hardiness in difficult environments and their high milk volumes.

They are considered rare in Australia, and are used locally for milk production, although in the Middle East and Asia they are also used for meat and wool.

Carolyn Davidson runs 300 Awassi sheep to produce milk near Beaudesert, inland from the Gold Coast, but her quirky business model goes beyond a sheep dairy.

More than two years ago, she began a project that involved producing 4,000 Awassi embryos for export to the Middle East.

Ms Davidson says it was a form of diversification primary producers can only dream about.

"I think their genetics were dying out and they were getting too inbred, and Qatar probably couldn't get Awassis from Israel," she said.

"For a while I fobbed [the Qataris] off thinking it's too good to be true, but we ended up doing it.

"I learnt more about the breeding of a sheep than what I'd ever known and it was a very steep learning curve."

Ms Davidson says she was surprised by the initial request, given Awassi sheep originate from the Middle East, but was up for the challenge.

"Every six weeks we had to prepare the ewes and artificially inseminate them. A week later we'd have to flush the embryos out of them," she said.

"After the embryos were graded, they went into nitrogen, hopped on a plane and went off to different parts of Australia to be put into Merino sheep the following day."

"They needed more Awassis and the idea is to grow them in Australia, then export them to Qatar."

Ms Davidson could not comment on the project at the time, but now that it's over she was glad to be part of it.

"They [Qatar] have enough of their own now, thanks to us and a couple of other Awassi breeders in Australia," she said.

Ms Davidson says she's since gone on to supply the United States and Mexico with Awassi embryos as well.

"The ones into the US were the first Awassis there," she said

"The American Sheep Milking Association is quite a lot larger than Australia's and they are very keen to expand their sheep numbers.

"Primary in the US they're used for milking, but in Qatar they're an all-purpose sheep."