Three captive male cheetahs feed just meters away from the filmer at the Ann Van Dyk Cheetah Centre in South Africa.

Footage shows these three big cats named Bow, Buin and Mate chowing down and licking the big food trough clean.

It emerges these three to four-year-old animals have different personalities as a woman describes the pecking order in the group as well as distinct markings not obvious at first glance.

Footage was shot on January 29.

The Ann Van Dyk Cheetah Centre at De Wildt west of Pretoria in South Africa studies and breeds Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) and other threatened wildlife species to aid in their conservation. The Cheetah is a large cat that occurs mainly in north, southern and eastern Africa. Cheetahs are listed as vulnerable by the IUCN, with only about 7,000 estimated to be left in the wild. Cheetahs are unusual amongst wild cats – they cannot retract their claws, and are active during the day. Cheetahs are the world’s fastest land mammal, and can accelerate from standing up to 112 km/hour (70 mph), although they cannot maintain such speeds for long. The De Wildt Cheetah Centre has bred more than 800 Cheetahs, most of whom have been released into the wild. However, sometimes captive-bred Cheetahs do not adapt to fending for themselves, and have to be captured and returned to the Centre to prevent them dying of starvation in the African bush. These three captive-bred male Cheetahs did not succeed when released, and now live in a large, naturally vegetated enclosure. They are fed each day on minced meat by their keeper Botha, with visitors to the Centre watching on from the safety of a safari vehicle.