diff --git a/backfiller/backfiller/main.py b/backfiller/backfiller/main.py
index 4a41909..1b03b64 100644
--- a/backfiller/backfiller/main.py
+++ b/backfiller/backfiller/main.py
@@ -144,7 +144,7 @@ class BackfillerManager(object):
 
 	def __init__(self, base_dir, stream, variants, static_nodes=[], start=None,
 			run_once=False, node_file=None, node_database=None, localhost=None,
-			download_concurrency=5):
+			download_concurrency=5, recent_cutoff=120):
 		"""Constructor for BackfillerManager.
 		Creates a manager for a given stream with specified variants. If
 		static_nodes is None, manager"""
@@ -160,6 +160,7 @@ class BackfillerManager(object):
 			self.db_manager =  database.DBManager(dsn=self.node_database)
 		self.localhost = localhost
 		self.download_concurrency = download_concurrency
+		self.recent_cutoff = recent_cutoff
 		self.stopping = gevent.event.Event()
 		self.logger = logging.getLogger("BackfillerManager({})".format(stream))
 		self.workers = {} # {node url: worker}
@@ -276,7 +277,11 @@ class BackfillerWorker(object):
 	"""Backfills segments from a node.
 
 	Backfills every WAIT_INTERVAL all segments from node/stream to
-	base_dir/stream for all variants. If run_once, only backfill once.""" 
+	base_dir/stream for all variants. If run_once, only backfill once.
+
+	recent_cutoff -- Skip backfilling segments younger than this number of
+		seconds to prioritise letting the downloader grab these segments.
+	"""
 
 	WAIT_INTERVAL = 120 #seconds between backfills
 
@@ -290,6 +295,7 @@ class BackfillerWorker(object):
 		self.variants = manager.variants
 		self.start = manager.start
 		self.run_once = manager.run_once
+		self.recent_cutoff = manager.recent_cutoff
 		self.stopping = gevent.event.Event()
 		self.done = gevent.event.Event()
 
@@ -302,16 +308,12 @@ class BackfillerWorker(object):
 		self.logger.info('Stopping')
 		self.stopping.set()
 
-	def backfill(self, hours, segment_order='random', recent_cutoff=60):
+	def backfill(self, hours):
 		"""Backfill from remote node.
 	
 		Backfill from node/stream/variants to base_dir/stream/variants for each
 		hour in hours.
-	
-		Keyword arguments:
-		recent_cutoff -- Skip backfilling segments younger than this number of
-			seconds to prioritise letting the downloader grab these segments."""
-	
+		"""
 		for variant in self.variants:
 	
 			for hour in hours:
@@ -350,7 +352,7 @@ class BackfillerWorker(object):
 	
 					# to avoid getting in the downloader's way ignore segments
 					# less than recent_cutoff old
-					if datetime.datetime.utcnow() - segment.start < datetime.timedelta(seconds=recent_cutoff):
+					if datetime.datetime.utcnow() - segment.start < datetime.timedelta(seconds=self.recent_cutoff):
 						self.logger.debug('Skipping {} as too recent'.format(path))
 						continue
 	
@@ -406,10 +408,11 @@ class BackfillerWorker(object):
 @argh.arg('--node-database', help='Postgres conection string for database to fetch a list of nodes from. Either a space-separated list of key=value pairs, or a URI like: postgresql://USER:PASSWORD@HOST/DBNAME?KEY=VALUE . If None (default) do not get nodes from database.')
 @argh.arg('--localhost', help='Name of local machine. Used to prevent backfilling from itself. By default the result of socket.gethostname()')
 @argh.arg('--download-concurrency', help='Max number of concurrent segment downloads from a single node. Increasing this number may increase throughput but too high a value can overload the server or cause timeouts.')
+@argh.arg('--recent-cutoff', help='Minimum age for a segment before we will backfill it, to prevent us backfilling segments we could have just downloaded ourselves instead. Expressed as number of seconds.')
 def main(streams, base_dir='.', variants='source', metrics_port=8002,
 	static_nodes='', backdoor_port=0, start=None, run_once=False,
 	node_file=None, node_database=None, localhost=socket.gethostname(),
-	download_concurrency=5):
+	download_concurrency=5, recent_cutoff=120):
 	"""Backfiller service."""
 
 	variants = variants.split(',') if variants else []
@@ -433,7 +436,7 @@ def main(streams, base_dir='.', variants='source', metrics_port=8002,
 	workers = []
 	for stream in streams:
 		logging.info('Starting backfilling {} with {} as variants to {}'.format(stream, ', '.join(variants), base_dir))
-		manager = BackfillerManager(base_dir, stream, variants, static_nodes, start, run_once, node_file, node_database, localhost, download_concurrency)
+		manager = BackfillerManager(base_dir, stream, variants, static_nodes, start, run_once, node_file, node_database, localhost, download_concurrency, recent_cutoff)
 		managers.append(manager)
 		workers.append(gevent.spawn(manager.run))