Thank you for the information and suggestions.
We have 9 sheep, 8 goats, turkeys, guineas, 15ish chickens. The livestock at this point are on the 1.5 ac area of the main homestead, so that leaves about 3.5 to grow something else. The land is clay and dried silt from the ancient lake that was here. it grows Russian thistle and cheat grass well.
The water settles around the chicken coop, the lowest part of our place. The slope of the land is very gradual to the south. I thought of swells and a chicken tractor for fertilizer.
Our temps run 100 for a couple months in the summer. We average 9 in rain and 19 of snow. We don't have more water rights than one ac. so whatever we plant has to tolerate drought. We aren't on a Playa,
