The nearly five-acre property did not have a traditional house and appeared to be abandoned, but the mother and children were living in a shed made of plywood, plastic, metal poles and other materials, the sheriff’s department said. The father slept some nights in a car on the property and the others in an abandoned trailer near the shed. Deputies found about 30 to 40 cats roaming the trailer, the authorities said.

“The victims were found to have an inadequate amount of food and were living in an unsuitable and unsafe environment due to the conditions located on the property,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.

Cindy Bachman, a sheriff’s department spokeswoman, said investigators had not found records of the children attending school. The family lived on the property for at least the past four years, Ms. Bachman said, and investigators were looking into where they resided previously.

Officials with the county’s Children and Family Service department took custody of the children, whose names and genders were not released. The parents were being held on Thursday night in a county jail in lieu of $100,000 bond. It was not clear if they had hired a lawyer.