Just FYI there are thornless honey locust. I have a huge one, probably about 70 years old, maybe older with those huge thorns. Last year I bought a thornless one, it's still a sapling but has put out 2 ft of growth this year.
Also 2 years ago I got a couple truckloads of wood chips from the tree trimmers. I've used some in
compost and some as mulch and have found some thornless trees sprouting up from it. I let them grow and if they are thornless I pot them up until I have a place ready to plant them into.
Black locust is also a good species; saplings make good tool handles, wood is dense and rot resistant, often used for fence posts. Kind of a scrubby little thing while young. Not sure of nutrient content but think the leaves must be good, lots of cows eat them and they are nitrogen fixers. Small hooked thorns like roses, pretty white flower clusters in spring.
I also bought a red flowered locust from the nursery, thornless, similar to the black locust but with pretty red/pink flower clusters. My single tree only made a couple seed pods so this fall I'm going to try and root some cuttings.
Usual tree on range land here is mesquite or scrub oak. Scrub oak has very nasty acorns because they have so much tannin I don't know what eats them, maybe the packrats. Mesquite pods are tasty, can be made into flour, green pods eaten boiled. Pods are high in nutrition for livestock and people. You would have to grind them a bit for poultry I think.
Mesquite also fix nitrogen and provide light shade, allowing grass to grow under them.
Future plans include planting figs, olives and pomegranates on the bottoms of the slopes where they will get the most water. Once I have the native grasses back on these degraded hillsides, to graze some goats and sheep, followed by poultry. The poultry could also be turned in under the fruit trees to clean up rotty fruit and insects. Glad for the mention of the mulberry as good fodder, grows well here if irrigated. Easily grown from cuttings.