diff --git a/TUTORIAL.mkd b/TUTORIAL.mkd
index e160198..b5586d3 100644
--- a/TUTORIAL.mkd
+++ b/TUTORIAL.mkd
@@ -447,8 +447,9 @@ extension.
 [PyYAML]: http://pyyaml.org/
 [libyaml]: http://pyyaml.org/wiki/LibYAML
 
-If, for whatever reason, you cannot use PyYAML, you can still use beanstalkc
-and just leave the YAML responses unparsed. To do that, pass `parse_yaml=False`
+If, for whatever reason, you cannot use PyYAML, you can still use beanstalkc.
+beanstalkc includes a limited parser which may suit your needs, or you can
+just leave the YAML responses unparsed. To do that, pass `parse_yaml=False`
 when creating the `Connection`:
 
     >>> beanstalk = beanstalkc.Connection(host='localhost',
@@ -482,3 +483,8 @@ Alternatively, you can also pass a function to be used as YAML parser:
     >>> beanstalk.close()
 
 This should come in handy if PyYAML simply does not fit your needs.
+
+The output of the builtin parser is mostly identical to PyYAML for the
+data returned by beanstalkd. The known difference is that all non-integer
+values are left as strings. This affects a limited set of keys in the
+stats() response.
diff --git a/beanstalkc.py b/beanstalkc.py
index 511f514..725828b 100755
--- a/beanstalkc.py
+++ b/beanstalkc.py
@@ -50,8 +50,7 @@ def __init__(self, host=DEFAULT_HOST, port=DEFAULT_PORT, parse_yaml=True,
             try:
                 parse_yaml = __import__('yaml').load
             except ImportError:
-                logging.error('Failed to load PyYAML, will not parse YAML')
-                parse_yaml = False
+                parse_yaml = self.__yparse
         self._connect_timeout = connect_timeout
         self._parse_yaml = parse_yaml or (lambda x: x)
         self.host = host
@@ -251,6 +250,23 @@ def stats_job(self, jid):
                                    ['OK'],
                                    ['NOT_FOUND'])
 
+    @staticmethod
+    def __yparse(stats):
+        "best efforts yaml parser, sufficient for tube stats"
+        try:
+            t = stats[4:].rstrip().split('\n')
+            if t and t[0][:2] != '- ':
+                # We need to make the second argument an int if possible.
+                # The weird order (not ...) is to ensure '0' gets converted
+                # to int
+                return dict((y[0], not y[1].isdigit() and y[1] or int(y[1]))
+                            for y in (x.split(': ', 1) for x in t))
+            else:
+                return [x[2:] for x in t]
+        except:
+            return stats
+
+
 
 class Job(object):
     def __init__(self, conn, jid, body, reserved=True):