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[Mandaril]

...I got already 2 casualties even when I have a well full of 7/7 water inside fortress and over 50+ pieces of booze.

Is it possible that my well, that is built inside CLAY walls is causing this? My water source is a river, so it shouldn't be a problem, right? The water is "≈" so it should be drinkable?

Wood is in bit short supply at the moment thanks to werewolves roaming outside fortress and me not having any military yet, so outside making tons and tons of booze, do you have any ideas how to get my dwarves drinking from the pool?

[Mandaril]

...I got already 2 casualties even when I have a well full of 7/7 water inside fortress and over 50+ pieces of booze.

Is it possible that my well, that is built inside CLAY walls is causing this? My water source is a river, so it shouldn't be a problem, right? The water is "≈" so it should be drinkable?

Wood is in bit short supply at the moment thanks to werewolves roaming outside fortress and me not having any military yet, so outside making tons and tons of booze, do you have any ideas how to get my dwarves drinking from the pool?

No-one has been wounded as far as I know.

[Dwarfaholic]

Do they have access to the water or the booze?

[Micro102]

maybe you have to zone it as a water source?

[Mandaril]

Here is a compilation of pictures I took:
http://img224.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dfay4.jpg

1)I dug a tunnel but by mistake above the surface, so I pump the water up manually
2)Gets regulated by Floodgate...
3)...channeled down to well level...
4)...to my small water reserve below well
5)I tried to make it a water source, but didn't help much.

I checked several of my dwarves and dehydration doesn't seem to be a general problem, but some isolated incidents, what makes it even stranger.

Can vermin cause this? All my cats turned into Werewolf food and haven't managed to replace yet.
Or maybe they DID get injured at some point and I just didn't notice them lying unconcius somewhere?

[MrFake]

What's your population?  I've sustained my present 100-head fortress for a month or so on less than 50 booze.  I get worried when it's less than 100, but like you, I have a wood shortage and can't sustain very high levels.  I've never used wells so I can't help you there, but you could try making a water source zone at (2) in your picture maybe.  (Edit: I forgot, a dwarf will still get mighty thirsty even on a steady diet of water, but maybe not to the point of dying of thirst.  Booze is best.)

You may also be going through a Prohibition phase.  I'm sure that's not a real occurrence in the game, but I have experienced times when my dwarfs refuse to drink from the mountains of booze I've brewed for them.  Maybe they feel like they should be sober at least a few days out of the year.

Also, if you can spare a few dwarfs, then draft maybe 5 or ten dwarfs into military service.  Don't give them weapons or anything, just take them all off duty and let them spar in the barracks.  In a month or so you'll have all champions.  Throw them to the wolves.  If they make it, problem solved.  If they don't, consider their death punishment for letting the werewolves get out of control in the first place.

[Magua]

You could use this as a chance to prove or disprove a hypothesis that's been going around about dwarves and drinking: only one dwarf can drink from a well/barrel at a time.

So let's say you have a well, and you have two barrels with 50 booze in them.  If the hypothesis is correct, that means that three dwarves can drink at a time -- doesn't matter how much booze is in a barrel, 1 barrel == 1 dwarf.  Any other dwarf that needs to drink will cancel the job because nothing's free.  They'll try again later, but with enough dwarves, they may be unlucky enough to *never* get a point where it's free.

So maybe try turning on all job cancellations (it's under 'o', I believe), and then wait and see if someone cancels drinking because there's no drink available.  Then check if the well and barrels are all in use (they may be flagged as in use even when a dwarf is in transit, so a better check might be the 'u' screen and count the number of dwarves with the drink task).

If you don't want to watch dwarves die to prove a point, people have reported success with more barrels/more wells.

[toast]

zone the welll as a water source.  "i"-> enter -> "w"

or something like that.

[Mandaril]

Thank you for replies, but I think I found the problem.

http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Water
"You can tell whether a particular area of water is salty or not by creating an activity zone around it. If 'water source' is not highlighted in the zone options, then it is saltwater, and thus undrinkable."

Activity zone doesn't highlight as "water source" No wonder dwarves get little thirsty when Booze gets low. I made a well full of undrinkable water!

And here I thought water in rivers was always 100% drinkable, I guess I was wrong. I think I'll drain one of the pools nearby for water then. Thanks!

[Cajoes]

You could also just run the water through a dwarven desalination plant (corkscrew pump) into a constructed container. (Desalinated water touching natural tiles will salinate again.) Due to quirky dwarven Phuseks.

[TettyNullus]

Yeah, you'd be surprised at what oddities locations can have  though good thing you figured out the problem, and Cajoes' suggestion should help you on your way   

[JoshuaFH]

a saltwater... river? I don't think that's possible, IRL i mean.

[sdu]

Dwarves can only drink from a barrell one at a time, i know from experience starting with no food/drink/any sort of items and only having 1 barrell to use for booze between 7 dwaves.

For wells im pretty sure that up to 4 dwarves can drink from 1 well at a time, using the squares that are horizontally and vertically adjacent to it.

[TettyNullus]

a saltwater... river? I don't think that's possible, IRL i mean.

There are a few salty rivers, though I can't remember names off top of my heads, as well as salty lakes. Dead Sea being a example of latter.

[Shaostoul]

For the salt water issue. (I think murky pools or w/e they may be called will still be salt water.) Above water level or mined out area complete with new walls and flooring to prevent re-saltification. O.o Screw pump removes salt some how... They don't like drinking from the water source straight, make sure you have a well for happy thoughts.