diff --git a/puppet/services/rabbitmq.yaml b/puppet/services/rabbitmq.yaml
index db9e2f8b26..121ae62a6d 100644
--- a/puppet/services/rabbitmq.yaml
+++ b/puppet/services/rabbitmq.yaml
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ parameters:
       The number of HA queues to be configured in rabbit. The default is -1 which
       translates to "ha-mode all". The special value 0 will be automatically
       overridden to CEIL(N/2) where N is the number of nodes running rabbitmq.
-    default: -1
+    default: 0
     type: number
   RabbitNetTickTime:
     description:
diff --git a/releasenotes/notes/rabbitmq-nr-mirrorqueues-7d0451756a67eab4.yaml b/releasenotes/notes/rabbitmq-nr-mirrorqueues-7d0451756a67eab4.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..a4cbf7c1f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releasenotes/notes/rabbitmq-nr-mirrorqueues-7d0451756a67eab4.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+---
+other:
+  - |
+    We now set the default number of rabbitmq queues to CEIL(N/2).  (Where N is
+    the number of rabbitmq nodes). Previously this was set to N by default
+    which translated to having all queues mirrored to all controllers. By
+    changing the default to CEIL(N/2) the queues will not be copied around all
+    servers, but just to a subset of them. This still provides the necessary
+    resilience in case of a controller crash, but is less demanding in terms of
+    performance (and likely triggers fewer bugs in rabbit)