diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 6a96f8ceb..20915d580 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -103,6 +103,7 @@ GELFRabbitHandler:
   * **exchange_type** - RabbitMQ exchange type (default `fanout`).
   * **localname** - use specified hostname as source host.
   * **facility** - replace facility with specified value. if specified, record.name will be passed as `logger` parameter.
+  * **level_names** - allows the use of string error level names instead in addition to their numerical representation.
 
 Using with Django
 =================
diff --git a/graypy/rabbitmq.py b/graypy/rabbitmq.py
index 23301bf6c..8f7224327 100644
--- a/graypy/rabbitmq.py
+++ b/graypy/rabbitmq.py
@@ -40,12 +40,14 @@ class GELFRabbitHandler(SocketHandler):
     :param localname: Use specified hostname as source host.
     :param facility: Replace facility with specified value. If specified,
         record.name will be passed as `logger` parameter.
+    :param level_names: Allows the use of string error level names instead
+        of numerical values. Defaults to False
     """
 
     def __init__(self, url, exchange='logging.gelf', debugging_fields=True,
                  extra_fields=True, fqdn=False, exchange_type='fanout',
-                 localname=None, facility=None, virtual_host='/',
-                 routing_key=''):
+                 localname=None, facility=None, level_names=False,
+                 virtual_host='/', routing_key=''):
         self.url = url
         parsed = urlparse(url)
         if parsed.scheme != 'amqp':
@@ -68,6 +70,7 @@ def __init__(self, url, exchange='logging.gelf', debugging_fields=True,
         self.exchange_type = exchange_type
         self.localname = localname
         self.facility = facility
+        self.level_names = level_names
         self.virtual_host = virtual_host
         self.routing_key = routing_key
         SocketHandler.__init__(self, host, port)
@@ -84,6 +87,7 @@ def makePickle(self, record):
             self.extra_fields,
             self.fqdn,
             self.localname,
+            self.level_names,
             self.facility
         )
         return json.dumps(message_dict)
diff --git a/perftest.py b/perftest.py
index dc3f9f8ed..9810adce8 100755
--- a/perftest.py
+++ b/perftest.py
@@ -63,6 +63,11 @@ def main(argv=sys.argv):
             'formatter': 'message',
         }
         config['root']['handlers'].append('graylog_rabbit')
+        try:
+            from amqplib import client_0_8 as amqp
+        except ImportError:
+            msg = "Unable to test GELFRabbitHandler due to missing external dependency: amqplib"
+            raise RuntimeError(msg)
 
     if args.console_logger:
         config['handlers']['console'] = {
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 898440895..99718f84c 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -64,6 +64,7 @@ def run_tests(self):
         "pytest-cov",
         "pylint>=1.9.1,<2.0.0",
         "mock>=2.0.0,<3.0.0",
+        "amqplib",
     ],
     extras_require={'amqp': ['amqplib==1.0.2']},
     classifiers=[