diff --git a/calico/etcdutils.py b/calico/etcdutils.py
index 1ae4f5e2b4f..a6de9276eed 100644
--- a/calico/etcdutils.py
+++ b/calico/etcdutils.py
@@ -32,6 +32,9 @@
 
 _log = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
+# Since this module does long-polling, we expect read timeouts from etcd but
+# urllib3 logs timeouts at warning level.  Disable that to avoid log spam.
+logging.getLogger("urllib3").setLevel(logging.ERROR)
 
 # Map etcd event actions to the effects we care about.
 ACTION_MAPPING = {