ELDORADO , Texas ( CNN ) -- Dozens more children and young women were removed Saturday from a Texas ranch that is home to members of a polygamist sect , as state workers investigated claims of physical and sexual abuse . Texas authorties used the bus in the background to transport children from a FLDS compound Friday . A total of 183 people -- including 137 children -- have been taken away since law enforcement officers raided the compound Thursday night , said Marleigh Meisner , a spokeswoman for the Texas Child Protective Services Division . The children -- most of them girls -- were being interviewed by special investigators , she said . `` We 're trying to find out if they 're safe , '' she explained . `` We need to know if they have been abused or neglected . '' Eighteen of the girls have been taken into state custody . Authorities believe that they `` had been abused or were at immediate risk of future abuse , '' said Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar . The others were taken to a nearby civic center . Meisner described them as doing `` remarkably well . '' Authorities continue to search the 1,900-acre YFZ ranch , occupied by followers of imprisoned polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs , and at least one man is being sought by police . Law enforcement agencies raided the ranch Thursday night after receiving a report Monday that a 16-year-old girl had been `` sexually and physically abused , '' Azar said . Watch buses take girls from compound » . Law enforcement and child welfare officials were at the ranch all night Thursday and throughout Friday . According to the search warrant , authorities are seeking Dale Barlow , 50 , whom they suspect of having married and fathered a child with a 16-year-old girl . Watch an Eldorado neighbor talk about the raid » . The warrant cited an `` immediate need '' for authorities to have access to the 16-year-old and an 8-month-old child with either the last name of Barlow or the girl 's last name . It instructs law enforcement officers to look for any records showing that Barlow and the girl were married and any evidence of them having a child . The people living at the ranch are cooperating , authorities said . Jeffs , the 52-year-old leader and `` prophet '' of the 10,000-member church , was convicted in Utah last year and sentenced to 10 years on two counts of being an accomplice to rape , charges related to a marriage he performed in 2001 . He faces trial in Arizona on eight charges of sexual conduct with a minor , incest and conspiracy . Jeffs ' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints bought the land near Eldorado four years ago and built the ranch , which they call the YFZ Ranch . The letters are said to refer to the words Yearning for Zion . It is home to as many as 400 members who relocated from their Arizona and Utah compounds . State and local law enforcement agencies set up roadblocks around the ranch Thursday evening , preventing journalists from seeing what was happening on the property , according to Randy Mankin , editor of the Eldorado Success weekly newspaper . `` This came totally out of the blue , '' Mankin said . There were no indications of violence around the ranch , he said . When CNN crews have visited the ranch , it was guarded by armed men equipped with night vision gear and other high-tech surveillance tools to prevent intruders . When CNN flew over the ranch in a small plane last year , the crew saw a massive temple , the three-story housing units where Jeffs ' chosen followers live , the water tower , the school and community center , the dairy and cheese factory and a massive concrete mill . The church openly practices polygamy in two towns straddling the Arizona-Utah state line -- Hildale , Utah , and Colorado City , Arizona -- but members living on their Texas ranch rarely venture into Eldorado , four miles to the south . Critics of the sect say that it arranges marriages for girls as young as 13 and that competition for brides may be reduced through exiling young men . If male followers are excommunicated , the critics claim , their wives and children can be reassigned to someone else . E-mail to a friend . CNN 's Bill Kirkos contributed to this report .
NEW : Number of people removed from property grows to 183 , including 137 children . The children are in protective custody . Police issue search , arrest warrants to members of polygamist family . Jeffs in Arizona , awaiting trial ; sentenced to two years in prison last year .