diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/kafka/producer/KafkaLog4jAppender.scala b/core/src/main/scala/kafka/producer/KafkaLog4jAppender.scala
index 652dfb8..5d36a01 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/kafka/producer/KafkaLog4jAppender.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/kafka/producer/KafkaLog4jAppender.scala
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ class KafkaLog4jAppender extends AppenderSkeleton with Logging {
   var topic: String = null
   var brokerList: String = null
   var compressionType: String = null
+  var retries: Int = 0
   var requiredNumAcks: Int = Int.MaxValue
   var syncSend: Boolean = false
 
@@ -49,6 +50,9 @@ class KafkaLog4jAppender extends AppenderSkeleton with Logging {
   def getSyncSend: Boolean = syncSend
   def setSyncSend(syncSend: Boolean) { this.syncSend = syncSend }
 
+  def getRetries: Int = retries
+  def setRetries(retries: Int) { this.retries = retries }
+
   override def activateOptions() {
     // check for config parameter validity
     val props = new Properties()
@@ -60,6 +64,7 @@ class KafkaLog4jAppender extends AppenderSkeleton with Logging {
       throw new MissingConfigException("topic must be specified by the Kafka log4j appender")
     if(compressionType != null) props.put(org.apache.kafka.clients.producer.ProducerConfig.COMPRESSION_TYPE_CONFIG, compressionType)
     if(requiredNumAcks != Int.MaxValue) props.put(org.apache.kafka.clients.producer.ProducerConfig.ACKS_CONFIG, requiredNumAcks.toString)
+    if(retries > 0) props.put(org.apache.kafka.clients.producer.ProducerConfig.RETRIES_CONFIG, retries.toString)
     props.put(org.apache.kafka.clients.producer.ProducerConfig.KEY_SERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG, "org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.ByteArraySerializer")
     props.put(org.apache.kafka.clients.producer.ProducerConfig.VALUE_SERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG, "org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.ByteArraySerializer")
     producer = new KafkaProducer[Array[Byte],Array[Byte]](props)