Albino mice

Question
Hello, I went to a locle reptile store for a look round with a friend who hadnt been there yet and came across a tank full of baby albino mice(just about 4/5 weeks old), for only $1 each! I'd love to get a small female group(3/4) to keep in a ten gallon screen covered tank but am abit worried about the desises they are talking about people getting from wild mice... ie people died while cleaning there closed garage last year near our city because of mice urine/feaces. Any tips are welcomed also...

Answer
Hello,
thank you for your question.
The hanta virus is carried by wild mice only (by two or three certain species). Theoretically, it can be transmitted to pet rodents, but there is no known case of this, it was only done in laboratories. Fancy mice don't have it, you don't have to worry about this.
Congrats on deciding to get a group of mice, many people just don't realize how social mice are. They are awesome to watch and, bribed with food, can be tamed very well. Pumpkin seeds are a favourite food, but very fatty, so offer only one seed per mice every other day.
Their diet should consist of a mixture of bird seeds, a high quality mouse/gerbil food without sunflower seeds, peanuts and corn (1 teaspoon per mouse and day), vegetables and fruit and animal protein: mealworms, crickets, dried brine shrimp or curd cheese or cat treats without taurin (taurin can be toxic for mice).

I recommend getting a 20 gallon or an even bigger cage. Mice climb and run very much and it's much more fun to watch them in a big cage. Offer them branches (birch, beech, oak, hazel, willow), cork tunnels, carbdoard tubes and boxes, rope (sisal, hemp, cotton), ladders, swings (for parakeets), baskets from straw, eelgrass, wicker to climb, hide in and gnaw. IKEA is an ideal shopping place for mice owners ;)
An alternative that offers more room to climb for the mice is a homemade cage made from a wooden rack (IKEA, again) covered with mesh wire fence (openings no bigger than 1x1 cm) and mesh wire doors on a wooden frame. Small cupboards can be turned into mice cages, too. The wood should be varnished with acryllic paint the kind used for children's toys. Here's a picture of the top half of my mice cage, made from an old cupboard:
http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/alben/80/94180/400_3035306562643635.jpg
http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/alben/80/94180/1024_6664356435383963.jpg
Those cages are better ventilated than tanks and a lot easier to access with the big doors. The problem with tanks is that you have to reach into them from above, which scares the mice (it's like a bird of prey is attacking them).

I don't recommend getting the feeder mice or mice form pet stores in general. Usually, males and females are kept together and the females are pregnant, so you might end up with 40 mice instead of four. Apart from that, feeder mice are often inbred and die young. Check animal shelters near you for mice or ads in local papers, often people give away mice because they did buy a pregnant mouse.

I hope I was of some help to you
Jennifer