The Weasley family has an owl named Errol and it's very old; it's moulting, and so exhausted that it can't even stand up after a flight - In fact it often downright loses consciousness after both long and short flights. If it even gets to where it's sent, because its eye vision has gotten so poor that it hits objects as it flies, which also can make it lose consciousness and could even kill it. Still the Weasley's keep using it for delievering their mail. In addition, their youngest son shows no compassion to it, calling it a "bloody bird", "menace" and "pathetic". And the Weasley parents bought one of their older sons a personal owl instead of buying a younger owl to take Errol's place.
This doesn't change during the series. In fact at one point Mrs. Weasley makes Errol deliever an enormous fruitcake and assorted meat pies, even though the owl would collapse even after delievering just one letter. It took Errol full five days to recover from that journey with the bakery goods.