Laurie DeWitt/The Gazette Anne Shroeder runs Star Gazing Farm, an animal sanctuary in Boyds. The farm will hold an open house May 16.

Anne Shroeder of Boyds said no name could be more appropriate for the demanding, rambunctious 3-year-old ruler of her small animal sanctuary -- a black and white goat who breaks into her car for naps, cracked her railing dowels one by one, and necessitated the formation of a "no goat zone."

"It's a love/hate thing," Shroeder said Thursday with a shake of her head. "I really do adore him but he does cause a lot of trouble."

Newman, who Shroeder calls "the boss and architect" of Star Gazing Farm, arrived in 2002 just a month after Shroeder moved to the four-acre property, determined to do something more for neglected and abandoned farm animals.

Now she hosts seven ducks, five sheep, three goats, two dogs, two rabbits and a burro, pig, horse and cat. "I consider myself full," Shroeder said. "In terms of the numbers I can, quote, 'save,' it's minimal but I can bring people here and breed some compassion in them; that's valuable."

Star Gazing Farm will hold an open house May 16 for the public to meet the animals.

Shroeder, co-founder/ director of MetroPets and a freelance Web master, comes from a long line of animal lovers. Her mother rescued and cared for any animal that "crossed her path," while her grandmother went to auctions and took horses intended for slaughter back to her farm. Shroeder, a city-dweller with a single cat, caught the vision a decade ago while periodically "farm-sitting" for a friend in Charlottesville.

"I didn't want to leave," she said. "I realized I needed to do something; I had to leave the suburbs. ... Sometimes you just get a vision."

Shroeder said she started by working at animal shelters and founded MetroPets in 1999 to provide centralized information about pet adoption and care, but felt there was more to be done.

"I don't think people have a lot of compassion for farm animals," she said. "Working with rescue groups I've found even rescue people who are really good with cats and dogs don't seem to have the feelings for farm animals."

Shroeder has that feeling. She says animals most people think about only as livestock have just as much individuality and personality as more typical companion animals and tells fond stories of her animal residents.

Tetsuro the potbellied pig, named for a favorite Japanese student in a long-ago English class, was discovered wandering Beltsville just under a year ago and became a "revelation" to Shroeder, who was initially frightened by the approximately 280-pound swine. "He had these sharp tusks and he looked at me with these intense eyes and I thought, 'My god, he's going to eat me,'" she said. Now, "I adore this animal. He's got a sense of humor and he's so intelligent."

W.C. the sheep will stand close by injured animals of any species as if trying to offer comfort.

Madison the goat is a "mama's boy" who when Shroeder attempted to wean him from the bottle stood on a picnic table outside her bedroom window calling at 1 a.m.

The most recent arrival is Hawthorne, an 11-year-old cast-away horse who was "not up to snuff for [his owner's] dressage needs," Shroeder said. The farm's last horse, Lucy, a "silent leader" of the Star Gazing inhabitants, died in February.

"Dee Dee [the donkey] was just braying all the time -- you know that 'hee-haw?'" Shroeder said. "And all the animals were just lost ... I wasn't sure I was ready [for another horse] but animals recover much faster from the grieving process."

With Hawthorne's arrival in April the sanctuary reached capacity, Shroeder said. The number of animals does increase periodically, however, as she bunny-sits for fellow rabbit owners or fosters animals through the local chapter of the House Rabbit Society.

Shroeder, a vegetarian, said she holds open houses at the farm twice a year as an educational outreach. "I just want people to think more positively about farm animals," she said. "I don't beat [visitors] over the head with 'You shouldn't eat ducks' or 'You shouldn't eat sheep.' I just say, 'Aren't they wonderful beings?' And they are wonderful."