Source: https://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-1166&y=-2798&z=5
Add to that expenses for the experiment, and $1000 seems not far fetched.
While labs have huge economies of scale—-I worked somewhere with a quarter million mice—-the mice aren’t just random field mice. Some of the genetically engineered ones are hundreds of dollars a pair (and possibly more if custom, raised under unusual conditions, etc). Xenografts need skilled labor and very clean conditions for the immunocompromised mice. $1000 seems a little high, but not much, especially if the work isn’t being done by an underpaid grad student.
By the way, you can poke around some of the animal vendor's sites. They mostly have their pricing on their websites along with a bunch of other information. Four really big ones are Taconic, Jackson Labs, Envigo, and Charles River.