Locals are being greeted for the first time with a "no truck, no sheep" message at the Bahrain Livestock Company feedlot where they buy their sacrificial sheep.

Video footage of sheep being stuffed into cars in the Middle East has been widely used by animal welfare groups in their campaign to end Australia's live export trade.

Eid al-Adha - "festival of the sacrifice" - is an annual three-day religious event across the Muslim world that coincides with the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

It is a time when people buy animals to sacrifice at their homes, creating peak demand for Australian sheep. This year about 4 million will be exported to the Middle East, with 700,000 going to Bahrain.

The Australian livestock industry has staff in Bahrain to help the Bahrain Livestock Company educate locals and enforce the new rule.

Peter Dundon, the Middle East livestock services manager with Livecorp and Meat & Livestock Australia, said there was little animal welfare legislation in Gulf states, but he hoped the model of co-operation in Bahrain would succeed in lifting standards and be copied elsewhere.

He said sheep that landed in Bahrain were properly handled using trucks and that it was usually only at festival time that problems arose.

The "no truck, no sheep" rule has been operating for a week, with people arriving in cars "a bit upset" when turned away.

"Bahrain definitely wants to be seen as a leader in improving animal welfare," Mr Dundon said.

But animal welfare groups say every aspect of the live sheep trade - from the long sea voyages to backyard slaughtering - is unacceptably cruel.