Need an advise how to join two subsurf meshes I need a best practice advice on the following.

I want to join two meshes which are both in one object. The three claws are seperate and I want to join them to the wrist.

I have done this before by deleting the faces on the ends of the wrist stump and the finger stumps, then bridge looped them. But there is often a problem with the number of edges not matching for each mesh. I.e. wrist has 4 edges and the fingers have 6 or more. 

What is best practise to accomplish this and creating good topology for deformation?
Select the object you want to join. Select the other. Then type Ctrl J.

If the two are the same object. Edit mode: select the vertices you want to join. Type W then Merge.

I hope this helps