4.5 acres is plenty for either sheep or pigs but also depends on if it is open pasture, wooded, etc. You have water access so that is a great start.
If pasture I would go with the hair sheep. Can almost be maintenance free on pasture and very little input. Would need to consider if you’re just looking for feeder lambs to grow out and harvest in fall/winter or actually over winter a flock where you’d likely need to supplement some feed.
Pigs work wonders on wooded terrain. Cleared out about a 1/3 of an acre strip of woods for me that was all thick underbrush. When we bought our property we couldn’t walk through and now it looks plowed with the larger trees still in tact. Eventually I’ll move them out to allow for grasses to grow in.
I will say with pigs you spend a lot more on feed unless you can find a source of scraps from a friend, neighbor, restaurant, etc.
With the size of land available to you - i don’t see why you couldn’t manage both. May take some planning but could definitely be done. Would suggest starting with one though!! Hope that helps a bit.
Thanks for the advice. I was leaning towards hair sheep because I figured that would be the easiest. Our yard is mostly grassland with a few small fruit trees and a few large cottonwoods. I had a bunch more fruit trees, but a massive grass fire vaporized all but the biggest and oldest. I've planted a few new ones, but none have produced yet. Hopefully this year.
For our life, raising feeder lambs would be better, but I like the idea of raising year round so we can provide for ourselves if things keep going in the direction they currently are. We'll see.
I also need to work out something with the water. We live on the river, but it is a low bluff, so it isn't directly accessible for livestock. In theory we have an irrigation ditch running through our yard as well, but it doesn't run all of the time either, especially in the winter.
Check out hydraulic ram pumps. Only work if you have some elevation drop but they don’t require any electricity and will give you non stop flow. Believe 1 foot of drop can create 7 ft of lift roughly. We pump from our creek bed to a 55 gallon drum and run hoses from there to the animals.
I did have a tower with a 330 gallon IBC but underestimated the weight of that much water..
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